Banished once a month
Once a month, Dhuna Devi Saud sleeps in a tiny shack with no windows and very little to protect her from animals roaming the hills outside.
She is not the only one from her village in Nepal who finds herself in these uncomfortable conditions. Dhuna lives in an area of the country where many woman practice ‘chaupadi’, a tradition that cuts them off from the rest of society when they are menstruating.
Jamuna Devi Saud lives in the same village and also practices chaupadi.
The custom not only obligates women like her to sleep in often rickety and unhygienic huts when they are menstruating. They are also not allowed to enter houses or temples, use normal public water sources, take part in festivals or touch others when they are on their period.
Jamuna says that she dislikes isolating herself once a month, but chaupadi is part of the village’s culture and she has to observe it.
Jamuna Rai
Despite cultural pressure, some women in the village do ignore the custom. School teacher Rupa Chand Shah used to practice chaupadi but decided to stop. She now comes to work during her period, and encourages girls in her class to do the same.
Some in the region have worked hard to raise awareness of the dangers of chaupadi, and the governmental women and children’s office runs classes to educate women on the subject.
Chaupadi is not only uncomfortable for the women who observe it – it can also be dangerous.
Alone in sheds that are frequently rickety and unhygienic, there have been cases of women dying while practicing chaupadi from illness, exposure, animal attacks or from fires lit in poorly ventilated spaces.
Sarmila Bhul, whose photograph is pictured above, was found dead while isolated in a shack in Ridikot Village. The cause of her death was never established.
Chaupadi was banned by Nepal’s Supreme Court in 2005, but it is still common in the country’s far and mid-western regions.
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