Rukum District covers 2,877 km2 of the Rapti zone in Nepal’s Mid Western Region. It comprises two constituencies with 43 VDCs, and its district headquarters (DHQ) is located in the town of Musikot (also known as Jhumli Musikot) at an elevation of 2,100 meters above sea level. Religious and natural landmarks with tourism potential include Barah and Sibalayah temples, 52 high-altitude lakes, and Deurali Cave. The district headquarters, Musikot, is connected with a seasonal road through Salyan district. However, access to the district is generally difficult in the rainy season due to landslides in many places. Alternately, Rukum district has two seasonal airports- one in Chaurjahari, which mainly serves locals of Jajarkot district, and another in Salle which connects the DHQ to Nepalgunj and Kathmandu with between two and four flights a week, heavily dependent on the weather. Rukum’s population in 2011 was a little over 200,000 people, 52% of whom women. Rukum district was a flashpoint of the armed conflict, along with neighbouring district Rolpa. Before the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in November 2006, most of the area was controlled by Maoist forces. As of August 2012, 33,065 men and 37,635 women were registered by the Election Commission as eligible voters with photograph and biometrics. Currently, Rukum has a District Police Office, nine Ilaka Police Offices, eleven Police Posts and two Airport Security Posts. Each Police Post is responsible for one to three VDCs. The District Court has one District Judge and one government lawyer who represents government in public cases, as well as those who cannot afford representation. There are 25 Paralegal Committees in the district. These informal mechanisms deal only with civil cases, while criminal cases are referred to the Police and Court. Though the practice of untouchability has been greatly reduced, some individuals in Rukum still hold traditional beliefs in caste classification and use these to justify ill-treatment of other people. In some rural areas, people still believe in witchcraft, although there are no reported incidents of people suffering violence on accusations of witchcraft. In Rukum, as in the rest of the Mid and Far Western regions of Nepal, women suffer from gender-based discrimination in education, in household chores and
in nutrition, as well as from differential social and cultural norms. While half of men were literate in Rukum in 2001, only 29% of women could read and write. A decade later, 71% of boys and men aged five and above are literate, but only 64% of girls and women can read and write. The major occupation of people in Rukum is agriculture, including vegetable seed production. However, most youths across the district opt for foreign employment, going to Gulf countries and India to take up unskilled labour-intensive jobs. The annual total remittance inflow to the district is around 280 million rupees sent by around 5,400 people from abroad. Rukum has one Hospital, two Primary Health Centres, seven Health Posts and 34 Sub-Health Posts. The contraceptive prevalence rate in Rukum is only 22%, significantly lower than the national goal for 2015 of 67%, and about half of the average for the Mid- Western region. Rukum is among the districts with a high prevalence of stunting, global acute malnutrition, and anaemia in children under five. Due to the challenging terrain, only a fraction of Rukum’s land is arable. In total 35,470ha are cultivated, only 2,089ha of which are irrigated. In the last five years, per capita production of edible food has usually met the basic requirement, though it decreased in 2011/12. Rukum’s topography makes it highly prone to landslides, and due to the road construction using excavators, the prevalence of landslides has greatly increased.
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Publisher:
UNRCHCO
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(2013
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Type / Script:
Bulletin or Poster
in English
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Keywords:
GEOSPATIAL INFORMATION MANAGEMENT, GEOGRAPHY, DEMOGRAPHY, CLIMATOLOGY, HEALTH INFORMATION, HEALTH STATISTICS, SOCIAL INFORMATION, GOVERNMENT INFORMATION, EDUCATIONAL INFORMATION, AGRICULTURAL INFORMATION, RULE OF LAW, PROTECTION, EQUITY, SOCIAL INCLUSION, EDUCATION, SOCIAL PROTECTION, EMPLOYMENT, MIGRATION, HEALTH, SANITATION, NUTRITION, FOOD SECURITY, AGRICULTURE, ENVIRONMENT, HUMANITARIAN SITUATION, GEOGRAPHY
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Thematic Group:
UNRCHCO (UNRCO)
:
UN Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator Office (UN Resident Coordinator Office)
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Thesaurus:
15.05.00
- Documentation, Library And Information Sciences And Reference Works
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Reference Link:
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