In the past few years, women have proved over and over again that there is nothing that they can’t do. Women touching the dead body in Nepal is a cultural taboo and now amid the Coronavirus crisis, they are helping the crematory workers by doing the unimaginable in the conservative country.

Women soldiers are carrying corpses in Kathmandu as the nation of around 30 million people are trying to manage the bodies of COVID-19 victims as the country is now facing a wave of growing cases amid pandemic.

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A Corporal woman named Rachna said, “I feel privileged and happy for being given a chance to do the work that was done only by the males so far. Society is changing ... I have not been to my family since I started my new duty, but my friends are happy. They thank me and say, 'you have performed a difficult task carefully and maintained your personal safety. Thank you’. I feel happy."

The four women soldiers moved around six bodies from a hospital to a crematorium on the first day of their job last month. Nepal Army’s spokesperson Santosh B. Poudyal said that women soldiers were put into new roles just to empower them.

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He said, “Women were deployed in combat duty, hospitals, ordnance, engineers, and disasters before. This is the first time they are managing the bodies from hospitals and transporting them to the crematorium. You can say it is breaking the borders … breaking the glass ceiling.”

Nepal’s army is responsible for managing the bodies of the COVID-19 victims all across the nation.

The pandemic has killed around 1508 people and has infected over 2,33,452 people all across the nation till now.

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