Chapter 1: Journey To Impurity

Transforming Menstrual Restrictions In Nepal

In Nepal, and according to Hinduism, the entry into adulthood of a woman is tied to a loss of purity.  In some rural areas, menstrual women are exiled for a week, a practice known as Chhaupadi Partha. When they are on their period they are not allowed to enter their houses, visit the temples, attend festivities, cook, touch specific fruits and trees, or eat with their own family. Sometimes, they are not even allowed to look or talk to any male relative. Every year, women die from following this tradition, bitten by animals or choked from the fumes in the small, non-ventilated huts they stay in during their periods.

Surekha Kunwar, a 14-year-old girl from Achham district, poses for a portrait inside a goth or hut during her first period. This little mud house was built up several years ago in order to keep menstruating women away from their own houses. For the first time in Surekha’s life, she will be considered impure and forced to live in this place for 7 days.

When Surekha Kunwar realized that she had her first period, she was ashamed and tried to hide it. “I don’t feel impure or untouchable”, she wrote during the first bleeding days of her life..

Narpata Boudha, a Nepalese 47-year-old woman from a remote far western village in Achham district, shows the only instruments she is allowed to use when she is on her period. Menstruating women are not allowed to touch any cooking instrument or the tap water or fountains. They can only use a specific bowl and dish to drink the water and the food that the neighbors might put on it. They can’t eat in the community or partake in any social events.

In most of the villages, women share the goth. These spaces are commonly not well ventilated, and at dozens of women and girls have died in recent years from following this tradition.

Surekha Kunwar perched upon a tree to eat some fruits some months after her first period. In some areas, menstruating women are not allowed to touch trees like the Peepal tree, a tree that represents the God Vishnu, and speciffic fruits.

Although the Chhaupadi Partha has existed for decades, Nepali society is trying to change. In August 2017, for the first time in history, the country criminalized the isolation of the menstrual women with a three-month jail sentence or a 3,000 rupee fine ($30), or both, for anyone that forces a woman to follow the custom. 

A new generation is reinventing traditions, making them their own. Some women and men from rural areas have started to question these practices and became activists, and a growing number of them lead organizations and are working in rural areas, creating a new awareness and teaching about menstrual hygiene.

Some villages are already liberated from the practice. Last May 2018, Menstrual Hygiene Day was celebrated the first time in Kathmandu with the theme Education about menstruation changes everything. "Since I was a kid I have it clear, I was not going to go to the hut to sleep as my mother and sisters", says Radha Paudel, a Menstrual Activist of Nepal and an author. "I'm sure the solution is in the education and in the younger minds, and that step by step we're going to achieve what we are dreaming of".

The activist Gomati Joshi (left), teaches a class on menstrual hygiene, Chhaupadi and early marriage in a remote village in the Baitadi district. She has been working to change the stigma surrounding menstruation all over the country.

Surekha Kunwar studies inside her house some months after she had her first period. In her neighbor village, the school is placed near a temple. There, scared of insulting the Gods, menstrual girls usually don’t attend class. Hygiene conditions in most of the schools don’t help with tackling this stigma, so girls just stay home, scared of getting publicly shamed.

Surekha Kunwar, watching some Nepalese and Indian movies in her friend's smartphone in her house.

Anuja Bhatta, a 16-year-old from Kathmandu, is helped by her mother to wear a saree, a typical female garment, before assisting to a wedding ceremony in Kathmandu. Anuja Bhatta has been one of the first members of the family who is not practicing the Chhaupadi, thanks to the presence of an activist who lives in the building. 

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