Many young people left the September 2025 protests in Nepal with scars — both physical, emotional, and financial Originally published on Global Voices Nepal's Gen Z protests against corruption in Bharatpur, south-central Nepal. Image via Wikipedia by Himal Subedi . CC BY-SA 4.0 . This post is part of Global Voices’ September 2026 Spotlight series, “ Protest in Democracy .” With this Spotlight, we seek to explore the many forms of protest, the tactics states use to delegitimize and suppress them, and the complex relationship between protest and democracy. You can support this coverage by donating here . Nepal observed its first Gen-Z Martyrs’ Day on September 8, 2026, with a nationwide public holiday, marking exactly one year since young protesters took to the streets and caused fundamental change throughout Nepal’s social and political system. In September 2025, Nepal was gripped by nationwide protests led largely by students and members of Gen Z . The movement began with the government’s ban on social media platforms , but it quickly grew, without a leader , into a broader expression of public frustration over government corruption and inefficiency. Over several days, young Nepalis took to the streets across the country, protesting not only restrictions on online expression but also corruption, alleged misuse of public funds, and the visible wealth of political elites and their families. The protests then descended into confrontations with police officers that escalated and resulted in unlawful use of force, including severe human rights violations . Liza’s frustrations Among those caught in the violence was Liza Adhikari, 21, who was shot by an SLR bullet while standing opposite the Parliament Secretariat building. The bullet struck her from behind, tore through her body, and exited through the front, leaving behind an injury that cannot simply be stitched away. Liza Adhikari, taken on a stretcher to the National Trauma Center Hospital in Kathmandu—half an hour after she was shot. Image via Liza Adhikari. Used with permission. A final-year Bachelor of Business Administration student at Kathmandu University, Adhikari has not returned to her classes since the incident. She is left to suffer not just the physical damage but an emotional burden as well. She appealed for financial assistance through social media and visited hospitals across Nepal in search of treatment. With limited options available, she eventually traveled to India, where she recently underwent brachial plexus surgery . The brachial plexus is a network of nerves that carries signals from the spinal cord to the shoulder, arm and hand, allowing movement and sensation. In an online interview with the author from a hospital in India, Adhikari told Global Voices that the bullet had severely damaged the bones in her upper arm and doctors had told her that the veins were no longer functioning properly. Her chances of making a full recovery, she was told, remain uncertain. Yet she has not given up. Liza Adhikari, present day, in Mahakali (Sudurpaschim) province of Nepal. Image taken by her mother. Used with permission. That determination is also what brought her to the protest that day — something she now remembers with great loss and regret. The bullet has been removed, but its consequences continue to shape her health and educational path. Liza wasn’t alone on the streets that day. Shantanu’s story Shantanu Dhakal’s survival from Itahari , in the Sunsari District of Koshi Province in Nepal, is yet another example of the lasting consequences of the violence that was no longer confined to the capital. On September 8, 2025, Shantanu was in his college. Little did he know that the day of the protest would become an unexpected turning point in his life. For several days before the demonstration, he had been receiving information about the planned protest through social media. The 18-year-old, an only son born into a middle-class farming family in Morang district of eastern Nepal, joined the protest in Itahari that day. He went with confidence, carrying a banner filled with slogans he had prepared with his friends. “For the first hour, the streets were peaceful. But suddenly, after a while, crowds started marching aggressively, burning and throwing stones at public property and the Metropolitan City ward office. It lasted for two hours. Around four p.m., bullets and tear gas were fired at civilians. When the first bullet was shot, it went somewhere else; nobody knew where. But when the second bullet was fired, I didn’t realize that it was me this time,” he said in an online interview. In a matter of seconds, the protest that Shantanu had joined with confidence became a moment of survival. He regained consciousness about a minute later, after being taken to a nearby clinic where his wound was bandaged. He was then placed on a stretcher and taken to Birat Teaching Hospital. Until then, he remembers, “I had no hearing, no vision, nothing. Perhaps no sensory cells were functioning properly at that time.” Shantanu during the treatment in Biratnagar. Image via Shantanu. Used with permission. His first instinct was to run. That instinct may have saved him from further injury. The bullet entered through the left side of his jaw, fractured the bone around his teeth, and damaged the soft tissue inside his mouth before traveling towards his chest. What followed was not just emergency treatment, but the beginning of a long recovery. He initially underwent a tracheostomy and was kept on a tube to help him breathe. This was later followed by grafting as part of his treatment. For many, an injury may eventually become nothing more than a physical mark. For Shantanu, however, the scar still carries the memory of what happened that day. Even after ten months, it can bring back the trauma. Some days, it triggers regret and painful memories; on others, he learns to make adjustments and live with it. Because ultimately, life goes on. But the consequences of that day do not remain only on his skin. The injury has affected his physical movements, particularly while eating and sleeping, and its effects become even more noticeable when he works in the farm fields. His body has undergone two surgeries, although neither was considered major. Shantanu (standing in front of the PM office in Singhadurbar, Kathmandu. Image by Shantanu. Used with permission. The injury has also brought a financial burden to his family. Medicines prescribed by his surgeons are not always readily available and are expensive. Fortunately, much of his medical treatment has been covered by the Government of Nepal. Not every person who took to the streets was left with bruises on their body, while many have been marked with fear and trauma. Riya's story Riya (name changed), a police constable, also has a similar story. In an in-person interview with the author, she shared that she was on duty in Baneshwor , Kathmandu, on September 8, 2025, with some of her colleagues and friends. “The street was peaceful for the first half an hour, but suddenly it turned violent. Some of my friends were taken away by police, while I was struck by stones, severely bruising my left foot. I was taken to a nearby hospital, and my wound was bandaged,” she said. Riya getting treatment in a clinic. Image by Riya. Used with permission. But the fear continued after she left the hospital. “It was the scariest moment. Even after I returned home, that feeling did not easily go away,” she recalled. On September 8th alone, 19 people died during the protests , with hundreds more injured. But their deaths didn’t end the conversations they stood for. Abhijeet Adhikari, a lawyer and political activist, reflects on that day. Speaking to Global Voices over the phone, he said, “No principle of proportionality was followed,” fueling the public’s demand for accountability. Justice and accountability After the protests led to the installation of an interim government , numerous investigations have sought to determine responsibility and prosecution procedures . A judicial inquiry commission led by Gauri Bahadur Karki recommended the arrest of the leaders involved, including then-Prime Minister, former prime minister (K.P.) Sharma Oli , Home Minister Ramesh Lekhak , and others. However, a separate review panel in July 2026 found that the available evidence was not sufficient to hold them under criminal liability charges. Since then, even after a year, the path towards prosecution has become politically contested, and accountability still remains uncertain. Yet amid all these uncertainties, Liza, Shantanu, and Riya shared their thoughts on the impact of the protests and how the subsequent violence continues to affect them as they marked the anniversary. For Liza, those days remain intertwined with regret and the consequences of a decision she wishes she could undo. “Maybe, if I had listened to my parents that day, this wouldn’t have happened to me,” she said. For Riya, she chose not to remain trapped in the past. “Whatever happened, happened. It’s in the past,” she said. Yet, she remains uncertain about the direction in which the country is heading. While Shantanu grapples with a facial scar, he refuses to allow it to become his future. While he is slowly picking himself up as a recent high school graduate and is busy preparing to pursue an engineering degree. When you look at him, his smile says it all. Perhaps that’s the beauty of every survivor like him. Written by Susmita Aryal

“The breastfeeding room was always there. But there was no-one to bring my baby to me.” Originally published on Global Voices Workers at a garment factory in Gazipur, Bangladesh. Image via Flickr by Solidarity Center. CC BY 2.0 . In April 2026, Bangladesh’s Parliament amended the country’s labour law , extending maternity benefits for eligible workers from 112 to 120 days, or approximately four months. Yet for many women in the country’s garment factories, the harder question begins when that leave ends: Who cares for their babies while they return to shifts that may last 10 to 14 hours? The pressure is not limited to garment workers. Across Bangladesh, working mothers often depend on relatives or informal care networks, while affordable, quality childcare remains limited . The International Labour Organization (ILO) has noted that Bangladesh’s traditional family-dependent care system is under pressure as patterns of work and migration change. For low-income workers with long or unpredictable hours, that gap can be especially difficult. International brands and factories increasingly point to maternity policies, breastfeeding rooms and on-site daycare facilities as signs of progress. The question is whether those facilities are adequately staffed, accessible during long shifts and genuinely usable. Morsheda, 33, originally from Narsingdi , has worked in the garment industry for 15 years and currently works at a factory in Gazipur. She was interviewed in person by Global Voices in Gazipur in July 2026 for this article. After four months of maternity leave, she returned to work while her five-month-old baby remained with the child’s paternal grandmother. Before reaching the production floor, she prepares meals, cleans the house and gets her older child ready for school. “Buyers come and talk about different policies and workers’ rights. But our duty doesn’t get any shorter. We still work at least 10 hours a day, and with overtime it becomes 13 or 14 hours,” Morsheda said. “Sometimes I worked from eight in the morning until ten at night. My body was exhausted, my breast milk leaked, but I had to clean myself and continue working.” The factory had a breastfeeding room , but access was another matter. “The breastfeeding room was always there. But there was no one to bring my baby to me.” When her older child was an infant, Morsheda’s mother briefly stayed with her and brought the baby to the factory. Later, she relied on a paid caregiver who would not make repeated journeys for breastfeeding. Her five-month-old baby now stays with the child’s paternal grandmother, who brings the infant to the factory twice a day. “I have to finish the hourly production target before I go; otherwise, the supervisor gets angry.” Morsheda said. Her experience reflects a wider childcare problem documented in urban Bangladesh, where formal options can be limited or unaffordable and families piece together care around work. For garment workers, that can mean moving children between grandmothers, paid caregivers and older children. Mina, 38, originally from Rangpur, has worked in the garment industry for around 20 years and currently works in Savar. Global Voices interviewed her by phone call in July 2026. When her child, now five, was an infant, she received 56 days of maternity leave. “When my child was younger, I brought my mother from the village. She looked after my baby for around four or five months. Later, she went back to the village. Then I kept my child with another person by paying money. When I could no longer manage the cost, I kept my child at the factory daycare. But my child became sick there, and I had to take the baby to the hospital. After that, I stopped keeping my child at the daycare.” With no reliable option left, responsibility eventually passed to her elder son. “I knew it was affecting my elder son’s studies, but I had no other option.” Mina said. Both women described factories where women make up more than half of the workforce but daycare space is limited. At Morsheda’s factory, where around 3,000 people work and nearly 2,000 are women, the daycare accommodates only about 12 or 13 children and has two caregivers. Both women also raised concerns about hygiene and the quality of care. A national industry tied to global fashion Bangladesh’s ready-made garment industry generates more than USD 36 billion in exports and employs approximately 4.5 million workers, more than 57 percent of them women . In 2024, around 40 percent of garment exports went to the European Union and another 18 percent to the United States. Garment employment has expanded women’s access to paid work, but women still shoulder most unpaid care work at home. Bangladeshi women spend more than seven times as much time on unpaid care and domestic work as men, according to a national Time Use Survey cited by the ILO. An ILO-supported study found that 54 percent of working parents viewed inadequate childcare as a major barrier to women entering or remaining in employment, while 18 percent said they had left a job because of childcare responsibilities. Bangladesh’s labour law requires establishments with 40 or more women workers to maintain suitable rooms for their children under six, with trained or experienced female caregivers and access for mothers. But that requirement does not answer the practical questions raised by Morsheda and Mina about capacity, staffing and whether mothers can use the facilities during production hours. Beyond Bangladesh The ILO estimates that the global garment industry employs around 94 million workers, nearly 60 percent of them women. The legal protections differ. Bangladesh now provides 120 days (4 months) of maternity benefits for eligible workers and requires childcare rooms in establishments with 40 or more women. Vietnam provides six months of maternity leave; women nursing a child under 12 months are entitled to 60 minutes of paid breaks each working day, and employers are required to assist with daycare or kindergarten facilities or cover part of childcare costs. Cambodia provides 90 days of maternity leave , with half wages and benefits for workers with at least one year’s seniority. During a child’s first year, mothers are entitled to one hour of paid breastfeeding time each workday, while employers with 100 or more women must operate a nursing room and a daycare centre, or in some circumstances cover childcare costs. Yet legal provision does not remove the problem of access. In Vietnam, ILO research found that women made up 74.8 percent of the textile and garment workforce, while 40 percent of workers in the sector worked more than 49 hours a week in 2023. VnExpress reported that public nurseries around industrial zones were limited, private care could be expensive and many preschools closed before factory overtime ended. In Cambodia, World Bank reporting documented similar dependence on family care. Garment worker Srun Saren left two children with her 75-year-old grandmother and expected to leave her job after a third child because adequate care was unavailable. Another worker, Kang Somaly, left garment work after failing to find care for her four-month-old baby and seven-year-old child. Across Bangladesh, Vietnam and Cambodia, women sustain garment production while families absorb much of the childcare that makes their employment possible. From responsible sourcing to meaningful support The idea that support should extend beyond maternity leave is reflected in existing labour programmes. The ILO and UNICEF’s Mothers@Work initiative for Bangladesh’s garment sector identifies seven minimum standards, including paid maternity leave, breastfeeding and childcare facilities, flexible working arrangements, health protection, medical benefits, employment protection and non-discrimination. A 2022 ILO assessment found improvements in factory maternity and breastfeeding policies, while also highlighting women leaving and re-entering employment because of childcare responsibilities. The findings shift attention from the existence of childcare facilities to how they function in practice, including whether workers can use them during long shifts and while meeting production targets. Neither Morsheda nor Mina identified the international brands sourcing from their factories, and their experiences cannot be attributed to any particular company. Their accounts illustrate how childcare responsibilities may remain outside formal factory systems, relying instead on grandmothers, paid caregivers and, in some cases, older children. Bangladesh’s extension of maternity benefits to 120 days has expanded formal maternity protection for eligible workers. However, the experiences of Morsheda and Mina, together with findings from the ILO’s Mothers@Work qualitative assessment , point to continuing childcare challenges after workers return from maternity leave. Written by Maksuda Akter