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This week marked the second known Chhaupadi-related death in Nepal this year. The practice is supposed to be illegal, but it’s far from extinct.
A 15-year-old girl in Nepal died this week after she was forced by her family to stay in a hut while menstruating.
Roshani Tiruwa was found dead on the floor of her family’s chhaupadi hut on Sunday morning. According to local police, the high school student most likely suffocated while attempting to light a fire to stay warm during the night.
Prakash Mathema / AFP / Getty Images
Chhaupadi is a Nepali practice with roots in Hinduism.
The belief is that women become impure during their menstruation cycle and cannot be allowed around the rest of the family. They are forbidden from touching things like kitchen utensils, public water sources, attending school, or sleeping inside the family home. In the remote villages of western Nepal, this belief takes a more extreme form: banishing women in their periods to chhaupadi huts.
A typical chhaupadi hut is fairly small. The sheds or outbuildings often don’t have proper windows or doors. The huts are poorly protected from the elements and littered with hay and livestock dung. Staying in these sheds also expose women to snake bites, freezing weather, and wild animal attacks.
Navesh Chitrakar / Reuters
The photo below was taken in the Legudsen village in the western Accham district in 2014. It shows a family member attempting to feed women practicing chhaupadi without touching their utensils.
They aren't allowed to prepare food and are oftentimes forced into doing in more demanding physical labor, like collecting firewood or farm labor. Chhaupadi also has restrictions on the women's diets. They typically are forbidden from eating meat or other nutritious fruits and vegetables — they are instead given dry food, bread or beaten rice. The women aren't allowed to drink milk or eat any dairy products either because locals believe it would make their cows and buffaloes sick.
“If we touch men or anything in the house, cook or use public water tanks and wells, our God, Debti, will punish us. Our hands and legs will be twisted, our eyes plucked out,” a Nepali woman told Al Jazeera in 2014.
Navesh Chitrakar / Reuters
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