When Nepali youth took to the streets this week in protests sparked by a government ban on leading social media platforms, among the biggest targets of their ire were the allegedly wealthy children of the nation’s political elite.
For weeks before the ban, videos were circulating on social media purporting to show the expensive cars, handbags and vacations enjoyed by politicians’ offspring with hashtags such as #NepoKid and #NepoBabies.
The images of apparently extravagant lifestyles among the families of the powerful proved incendiary in a country that ranks 107th out of 180 countries in Transparency International’s annual corruption index and where many say political graft is rife.