<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121144/636ce4739c7e80680e0966aejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"/>How many of you have slept in a menstrual hut? The idea of a ‘menstrual hut’ might sound ridiculous to many but it is a real thing.In some parts of western Nepal, women are made to sleep in huts and even cowsheds away from their home during menstruation. In addition to being a clear violation of human rights, there are numerous cases of horrible experiences women have while observing this practice, known as Chaupadi.Practiced by Hindu families in Nepal and some places in northern India, Chaupadi is a menstrual taboo which considers periods to be dirty and impure.Women are at risk of physical and sexual assault during the time they spend in chau goths every year, coupled with cold temperatures and snake bites.The practice was banned in 2005. In 2018, it was criminalised. But the practice still exists in the absence of severe penalty. Currently, anyone who is charged and convicted for forcing a woman to observe Chaupadi is subject to a three-month sentence and/or a fine of a few thousand rupees. But the consequences slapped by the government on the guilty have done little to deter people from giving up the practice altogether.Lack of proper hygiene, safety and privacy during periods is one of the main concerns for women living in such shelters.<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/tipping-point-on-menstrual-banishment-in-nepal/">Tipping point on menstrual banishment in Nepal</a>, Marty LoganBut the practice of Chaupadi is not confined to western Nepal. A muted version of the practice is observed even in progressive cities like Kathmandu.In some households in Kathmandu, girls are not allowed to touch books during and after their period for three to seven days, making it harder for them to compete against boys in school.In cities, many families still do not allow the women in their families to go to the kitchen, touch the water tap or the refrigerator. Menstruating women can only eat and drink what is given to them.The rules prescribed to girls during menses is much worse in other parts of the country, all of them clearly boiling down to the patriarchy and society’s need to control women.It has always been extremely frustrating to me to witness a society that chooses to be advanced in some areas and traditionalist in other ways. Being selectively progressive and conveniently conservative does have strong undertones of cruelty.<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/review/bloody-period/">Bloody period</a>, Nepali TimesMost Nepali women have said that menstrual taboo is mostly enforced by older family members and religious leaders because they probably grew up watching the same thing repeat itself in every generation.Nepal’s patriarchal society plays a huge role in enforcing such rules. But as women, some of us still follow aspects of it because it can be hard to change them if you grow up in that environment even if it does not make sense.I ‘violated’ some of the menstrual taboos when I went away for college because if I did not cook for myself during my periods, no one else would. However, the practice has been so deeply ingrained in me, that despite living abroad for 20 years I am still unable to light the incense and pray to deities during the four days.The belief is so deeply instilled in my psyche that I still feel a slight awkwardness buying tampons at drug stores. Every morning, I still light an incense to three Hindu deities in my house except for the four days of na chune. I do not want to force change; I want to evolve naturally.I understand now that it is difficult to completely change your ways, but it is not impossible to try to see things from another’s perspective. But most people never try. If a person who is having her period chooses to follow the rules, it is entirely up to her, but the problem is when you force it upon them, which is the case in many families.<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/communicating-to-remove-menstrual-taboo/">Communicating to remove menstrual taboo</a>, Sewa BhattaraiGrowing up in a Hindu family in Nepal, I learned to acknowledge and accept that periods were ‘dirty’. During a cousin’s wedding in Kathmandu, I was not allowed to participate in the religious ceremony-- one of the worst experiences. It was aggravated by the fact that every aunty was telling me how sorry they felt for me. It made me feel like it was a bad thing to have periods and that it was bad to be a woman because I would not be in that situation if I was a man.Growing up, I used to see commercials for sanitary pads where women would be dressed in all white running around fields or deciding to take on a sport looking extremely happy. I wondered when I would be like one of them, only to realize years later that it was all a lie because the story was completely different in people’s homes.Girls and women are made to feel ashamed for this natural process and then treated like outcasts at home and in social settings-- discrimination in the name of religion.Rejecting social banishment is not meant to disrespect any culture or tradition, but a means to address the levels of awkwardness and discomfort experienced by women. Haven’t we moved forward enough in the world to not analyse and judge women who may be having their period?The other side of the story is that if a girl or woman, never gets her period, she is considered ‘barren’ which also does not have a positive connotation. Either way, women are not allowed to win.Girls need proper guidance and mentorship when they are growing up so they can understand that having periods is natural. It is not necessary for every girl to announce her period, but is important to teach all girls that this is not something they should be ashamed of.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/pandemic-deepens-period-poverty/">Pandemic deepens period poverty</a>, Geeta Pradhan

Anjana Rajbhandary

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Shamed for bleeding

<figure><img width="931" height="620" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110914118/636ba68f9c7e80680e07372djpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>All photos: VSO</figcaption></figure>Despite <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/kathmandu-valley-back-to-lockdown/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">restrictions on gatherings</a>,  women across Nepal mark Tij this week, the festival of women, on Friday. Increasingly, Tij songs are less about lamenting gender justice and more about striving for equality.One manifestation of entrenched patriarchy in Nepal is menstrual taboo, an extreme form of which is chhaupadi, the practice in parts of Nepal of the <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/women-speaking-out-against-chaupadi,3518" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">monthly banishment</a> of women to an outhouse during their periods.In a country where period stigma is still prevalent young women, adolescent girls are facing extra barriers under lockdown to maintain their period in a safe and dignified way.During the pandemic girls are mostly confined to the household, and during their periods are forbidden to touch communal objects in the household. Added to this, the economic crisis hitting these communities is leaving young women and girls unable to afford period products.Under a unique <a href="https://www.vsointernational.org/our-work/inclusive-education/system-strengthening/sisters-for-sisters" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.vsointernational.org/our-work/inclusive-education/system-strengthening/sisters-for-sisters&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1597908281944000&amp;usg=AFQjCNE0R0d69AjenpkQ1LnCoIEncENunQ">Sisters for Sisters' Education</a> started by the UK-based VSO (Volunteer Service Overseas), big girls in rural Nepal who were already mentoring younger ones have stepped in during the lockdown to guide them about using and accessing period products.<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/?p=21465&amp;preview=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Nepal’s superwomen beat superstition</a>, Aruna Upreti <figure><img width="932" height="620" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110914118/636ba6919c7e80680e07372ejpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>Muni Kumari Gupta is a ‘Big Sister’ who has been mentoring 11 little sisters in her community in a village in Parsa, the district in Nepal hardest hit by the Covid-19 pandemic. “These days we are all living in a fear of the coronavirus,” Muni Kumari says, “ever since the first case was found in our village, there has been more fear.”</figcaption></figure>Muni Kumari Gupta is a ‘Big Sister’ who has been mentoring 11 little sisters in her community in a village in Parsa, the district in Nepal hardest hit by the Covid-19 pandemic.“These days we are all living in a fear of the coronavirus,” Muni Kumari says, “ever since the first case was found in our village, there has been more fear.”Because the lockdown has been re-imposed in Parsa, Muni Kumari keeps in touch with her little ‘sisters’ through the mobile phone telling them to wear masks, maintain distance and keep elderly relatives safe.<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/communicating-to-remove-menstrual-taboo/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Communicating to remote menstrual taboo</a>, Sewa BhattaraiWhen the lockdown eased for a few weeks in July, she visited the homes of her ‘sisters’ to coach them in school lessons. Most schools in Parsa had been converted into quarantine centres for returnees from abroad, and had been closed.Muni Kumari herself takes classes through the radio and joins her ‘sisters’ to learn English through the remote radio classes.“It has been very difficult to communicate properly with girls and their families. I was allowed to visit a few families near my home so that I could teach them how to wash hands and use a face mask properly,” says Muni Kumari, who had been trained in making reusable sanitary pads, and she shares this skill with family members and girls in the community.“During the lockdown, we were unable to buy sanitary pads at the shops. Therefore, the skills helped us to make our pads at home,” she adds.<a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/pad-power-nepal,4147">Pad Power</a>, Ziyu LinAnjali Patel is now in Grade 10, and is thankful that she has her ‘Big Sister’, Muni Kumari Gupta to help her navigate the dangers of the pandemic, the shortages of everything during the lockdown, and setbacks to education because of the closure of schools.“My Big Sister is the closest person I can share my problems with,” says Anjali, “she lives nearby and is always available to guide us and the other small sisters. She helps me with my studies, and tells me how to stay safe during the pandemic.”When Anjali was 10, her parents made her do household chores so she missed school a lot. Her parents also did not find school to be that important for a girl child. It was Muni Kumari who convinced her parents that Anjali should get an education.<a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/removing-menstrual-shame,4148" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Removing menstrual shame</a>, Clara Hare-Grogg <img width="933" height="620" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110914118/636ba6949c7e80680e07372fjpeg.jpg" alt=""><img width="931" height="619" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110914118/636ba6969c7e80680e073730jpeg.jpg" alt="">Anjali Patel is at home listening to a remote classroom on the radio, and helping her nephews with school lessons.After the lockdown started in March, Anjali found it difficult because she could not meet her mentor face-to-face. But Muni Kumari called her on the phone and gave her confidence, instructing her how to protect herself and the family against the virus.The Sister for Sisters program is supported by UK Aid through VSO and has distributed sanitary hygiene packs to nearly 1,200 families in Surkhet, Lamjung, Dhading and Parsa districts of Nepal. The kits include soap, towel, toothbrush, reusable sanitary pad, underwear, nail cutter, hygiene kit bag and liquid chlorine. The project is implemented by Global Action Nepal and Aasaman Nepal. Nitu Gupta is also a ‘Big Sister’ for 13 smaller girls in an adjoining village in Parsa district. As elsewhere in Nepal, the young girls cannot go to school, their families are in a precarious economic situation, and there is the need to protect themselves from the spread of the coronavirus.<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/that-time-of-the-month/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">That time of the month</a>, EditorialNitu was already helping to educate her 13 ‘sisters’ before the lockdown, and she has been carrying on that work to make up for the closure of schools.  “During the lockdown, our economic situation became much more difficult, and the girls were mentally affected because there have been suicides in the community,” Nitu says.Sisters for Sisters helped girls like Nitu with remote training through radio to stay safe during the pandemic. She kept in touch with the girls under her care, teaching them to wash hands frequently. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/menstruation-is-not-private-business-it-is-everyones-business/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">“Menstruation is not a private business, it’s everyone’s business”</a>, Reeti KC <figure><img width="932" height="620" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110914118/636ba6999c7e80680e073731jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>Nitu Gupta is another mentor in the Sister for Sisters project, raising awareness about Covid-19 and supporting the education of girls who are out of school in Bahubari of Parsa district. Here she is handing over a hygiene kit to the mother of one of her little 'sisters'.</figcaption></figure>She adds, “The most challenging has been the lack of access to reading materials and menstrual products during the lockdown. But we have been able to provide the families with hygiene kits. This has helped the girls stay clean and comfortable.” Joya Parvin,18, is also a ‘Big Sister’ with 13 younger girls under her charge, but during the lockdown she has only been able to keep in touch with four of them who live nearby. She says the biggest challenge for the girls in her group is accessing menstrual products, soap and sanitser and masks.When she first became a ‘Big Sister’ her main role was to convince parents from her Muslim community to send their daughters to school. But now that schools are closed, he mentoring is different – to make sure the girls keep up with their studies through radio, and have the necessary support to maintain hygience and stay safe.<a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/GUEST-COLUMN/blood-sisters-menstruation,839" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Blood sisters</a>, Sangita Thebe-Limbu <figure><img width="930" height="620" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110914118/636ba69b9c7e80680e073732jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>Joya Pravin showing the little 'sisters' under the charge how to make their own sanitary napkins.</figcaption></figure>One of the little ‘sisters’ in the group that Joya mentors is Rami Khatun, and she says she was seized with panic when Parsa became a coronavirus hotspot in July. “But she gave us tips on how to stay safe, and when the shops ran out of sanitary pads, Joya taught us how to make our own,” says Rami.Rami spends her lockdown days at home helping with chores, and taking care of her nephews. Even though the schools are closed, Joya used to visit when the lockdown was eased. But now that are restrictions of movement, she calls frequently and Rami listens to the radio program to improve her English.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/tipping-point-on-menstrual-banishment-in-nepal/">Tipping point on menstrual banishment in Nepal</a>, Marty Logan

Ensuring menstrual hygiene during Nepal lockdown

<figure><img width="1500" height="1440" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108151116/636a64f69c7e80680e059906jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>GRASSROOTS: Activist Radha Poudel has spent her career working for dignified menstruation. </figcaption></figure>Menstruation in Nepal has become synonymous with <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepals-superwomen-beat-superstition/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">chhaupadi</a>, the tradition of banishing women to cowsheds for five days during their periods. The practice is infamous in western Nepal — where another segregated woman died in Achham district this week — but the belief that a menstruating woman is dirty, impure and untouchable is pervasive country-wide.Nepal is one among many countries globally to consider menstruation a taboo. The topic is spoken about in hush-hush tones and only among women who are on intimate terms — but one activist is fighting such attitudes.“Menstruation is not private business, it is everyone’s business,” says Radha Paudel, who has been working to abolish the menstrual taboo for almost 40 years.Read also:<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/communicating-to-remove-menstrual-taboo/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Communicating to remove menstrual taboo</a>, Sewa Bhattarai<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepals-superwomen-beat-superstition/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nepal’s superwomen beat superstition</a>, Aruna Uprety Paudel started to speak publicly about menstruation at age 15, when she was studying to become a nurse, and quickly realised that the taboo was due to lack of education. She vowed to teach people what she was learning, and her parents were her first students.During her childhood, Paudel had seen her elder sisters being mistreated by neighbours and other villages when they stayed in the cowshed during their periods. It scarred and scared her.  Traumatised, the nine-year-old left her home in Chitwan to commit suicide because she did not want to live as a girl.Paudel obviously failed to kill herself, but the young girl never stopped dreaming about being a man in <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/patriarchy-in-an-oligarchy/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a patriarchal society</a>, where the odds were always against women. Now as a grown woman, she helps young girls accept and not be ashamed of the natural process.“Out of 30 days, when 5 days of menstruation make no difference in the daily lives of women, that will be dignified menstruation,” says Paudel. She believes that excluding a woman from any daily activity amounts to destroying her dignity, whether it is barring her from a religious task or excluding her from a certain part of the house. Paudel tells Nepali Times that upholding women’s dignity during menstruation should be activists’ priority, ahead of other issues like accessibility of <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/pad-power-nepal,4147" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sanitary products</a>. The menstrual taboo, she argues, encourages men to be powerful and women to be powerless.Two years ago, the Nepal government drafted a policy on <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/that-time-of-the-month/">dignified menstruation</a>. This year, the Radha Paudel Foundation and its partners are taking the initiative to mark 8 December as the Day for Dignified Menstruation. It will also be marked globally, by friends and partners of the Global South Coalition for Dignified Menstruation. An international workshop is scheduled to take place in May, 2020.Menstruation activism has created a global solidarity of sisterhood. One example is the 2019 Oscar-winning documentary Period. End of Sentence by Iranian-American Director Rayka Zehtabchi. It focuses on women in India who fight the stigma of menstruation by opening a sanitary pad manufacturing company. It is evident in the film that their voices are being heard and the veil of ignorance is ripping apart.Read also<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/review/bloody-period/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bloody period</a>, Nepali Times<a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/GUEST-COLUMN/blood-sisters-menstruation,839" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Blood sisters</a>, Sangita Thebe-LimbuBut Paudel thinks the documentary’s approach is insufficient. “It talks only about a sanitary pad company and doesn’t talks about dignity.” Likewise, she does not support the idea of period poverty, labelling it a foreign concept: “It focuses on accessibility of sanitary products but not the taboo attached to them. Distributing pads without providing this information promotes the idea that menstrual blood is dirty and must be hidden, which creates a negative impression.”

“Menstruation is not private business, it is everyone’s business”

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