The round 5 and 6 of The Liberty Debates Championship ‘Mahasangram 2016’ took place on 16th April, 2016 at King’s College, Babarmahal. The debates of the championship were held in parallel sessions for English and Nepali categories.
The motion of Round 5 was ‘This house regrets the trend of gender specific professions’ and Round 6 saw participants debating on the motion that ‘This house would extend the political rights to immigrants with PR status’. A total of 7 parallel sessions were conducted in both rounds where debaters put forward their arguments for and against the motion. The adjudicators and panelist marked the team performance with fair judgement.
For the first motion, debaters put forward their arguments as follows.
Proposition
Gender-specific professions give legitimacy to conservative society and hinder liberalization options for women. It promotes patriarchy by limiting professional choices – specially for females. Higher concentration of a certain gender in a certain profession results in lack of dynamism and diversity socially. It promotes the status quo which traps women in less-paid jobs and perpetuates gender discrimination. This trend also negatively affects personal integrity.
Opposition
This side did not directly advocate for the gender-specific professions but argued that the trend had been a great tool post world-war era to empower women who wouldn’t be able to directly take ‘all’ kind of jobs – especially managerial. It helped fill the paid work gap. On the other hand, gender-specific is not the same as gender-stereotypical. The social construct is what stereotyped the trend. Gender-Specific Professions also help bring specific people with the right kind of qualifications to the right place. Women are, by nature, caring so they fit well in such jobs that demand care. It also enhances productivity of all professions that way. If you put men in care taking jobs and women in construction, it wouldn’t such productive results. In a general broad view, these jobs have empowered people.
The arguments put forward in second motion are as follows:
Proposition:
The government (of the work-place) takes economic benefit from immigrants but turns away when the same people wish to be more visible in the political forefront of the country in question. If immigrants are provided with political rights, a feeling of ownership towards the nation they are working for inevitably increases.
People are more loyal to the place of work rather than the place of birth. Awarding such political rights strengthens democracy. The government also made comparisons of rights versus duties – the fact that they are paying taxes and fulfilling their economic duties should grant them the political rights.
Opposition
The opposition began with asserting that awarding such awards to immigrants would create political harm – there would be no assurance of loyalty towards the nation in question. Immigrants would have no obligation to be accountable to the country of work alone.
This would also threaten to cause economic harm as resources that are limited would be exploited by more people and burden of social security would increase.
When given political rights, immigrants shall feel ‘too’ comfortable living in a place – increasing their population and cultural infiltration – ultimately leading to religious and cultural domination over the natives.
Foreign intervention becomes amplified when one country awards such rights to non-natives.
Round 7 and 8 of the debate shall continue this Saturday, April 16 at King’s College, Babarmahal beginning 11.30 a.m. The motion for Round 7 is: This House Would endorse state run security forces’ involvement in industrial and business activities in Nepal/यस सदन नेपालमा सरकारी सुरक्षा बलको औध्योगिक तथा ब्यपारिक गतिबिधिमा रहेको संलग्नतालाई अनुमोदन गर्दछ ।
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