Unclean & unseen
The idea that menstruation is dirty has been used to
demonise and control women for centuries. Laxmi Vilas Ghimire describes
the situation in a part of Nepal where women having their periods are
banished from their homes
Every month when I get my
period and go to the goth [shed] for four days, I become ill, thinner, and
weaker. I come out of the shed on fifth day," says Kamala Bohara, a16
year old girl from mid-western Nepal. "I dread my period every month.
As my goth is near to the forest, I hardly get any sleep. The wild animals
roar throughout the night keeping me awake. I pray to God not to have
[menstrual] cycles again." For hundreds of years, women from this
part of Nepal have participated in Kamala's ritual called
"chhaupadi." During their menstrual period they are considered
impure and are forced to leave their home to stay in a hut or shed, called
a "chhaupadi goth."
Isolated goths
The chhaupadi goths are sometimes built almost a mile
away from village. Hardly six feet wide and four feet high, they can barely
accommodate two people. Although elite families build proper sheds, the
poorer ones use extremely dilapidated and unhygienic outhouses made from
mud, stone, and wood with no windows.
The practice derives from the belief that gods and
goddess become angry if any woman is allowed to sleep, sit, or stay in her
home during her periods. If anyone touches her, he or she needs to be
purified by taking a bath and drinking cow's urine or they will
become sick. Similarly, if she touches a tree it will not bear fruit and
will soon dry, and if she touches a pregnant woman, the child will be
miscarried or be born with malformations.
Denied nutrition
A long way from home, the women are secluded from
their family. They are also barred from participating in religious
ceremonies. During their time in the hut, the women are forbidden from
eating nutritious food, living only on dry bread and hot peppers. "We
are barred from consuming milk, yogurt, butter, and other nutritious food
and have to survive on dry food and rice. But we are not excused from work.
We have to participate in hard labour, such as working in fields, fetching
firewood, washing clothes, and so on," says Indira Budhathoki from
Jajarkot, a hilly district in the western part of the country.
The women usually stay in the huts for four or five
days, and, on the fifth day, they take a bath, wash their clothes, and
return to their home. They enter their courtyard after they receive
"tika," a holy red mark on their forehead symbolising
purification, from senior members of the family to allow them to resume
their normal activities.1 2
Chhaupadi is also practiced after childbirth and is
longer for girls during menarche. Although "minor chhau"
requires a menstruating woman to stay in a goth for four or five days,
"major chhau" is applied during menarche and after child birth
and requires women to stay in huts for 10 to 11 days.
The untouchables
After childbirth, a woman becomes untouchable for 11
days. Not only is she forbidden nutritious food, she is not allowed to use
a warm blanket and uses only a small rug, putting the health of both her
and her baby at risk. "As women are kept in the shed for 11 days
after they deliver their babies, most of them become sick and some of them
even die of infection that they acquire while staying in the unhygienic
shed. This has been one of the important causes of high maternal and infant
mortality in this region. This system has ultimately affected the
reproductive health of women," Chandra Budha, a community health
worker working in the Achham district, told the studentBMJ.
Living in a dirty shed increases the risk of
contracting an infectious disease and many women have respiratory and
diarrhoeal diseases. Malnutrition is a problem and regular social exclusion
triggers severe depression. There are also reports of people stalking the
goth and raping the woman inside. Compounding this, when a woman is raped
they are driven out from their home because rape is considered a social
stigma. "My husband deserted me after a man raped me in the shed.
What was my fault? How am I going to raise my 3 year old son now?"
one 25 year old woman said.3 But the actual number of assaults is unclear; women do
not complain for the fear of social reprisal.
A typical chhaupadi goth
Religious practice
Tradition and religion propagates the practice and the
older generations tend to enforce it. "I have been living in the
chhaupadi goth for the last 30 years during my periods. I think God wanted
women to live away from the house as we become impure during that time. I
can't leave the system that has been in practice for hundreds of
years just on the grounds of illness and difficulties. We have to bear
that," says Kali Malla, from the Doti district. Elderly women stick
strongly to the superstitious culture and fear that God would curse them
and put a natural disaster on them. These conservative feelings among the
elders make change difficult. A school teacher teaching in the Achham
district expressed his feeling, "I tried to bring change in my family
by asking my wife not to go the goth, but my mother did not want it and
went against my change. My family was nearly ruined, so ultimately I had to
give up the change."4
A developmental worker working in education in the
region expressed his view: "I see lack of education among women as
the main culprit behind this hideous system. As about 80% of the women in
the region are illiterate, they cannot bring in change themselves. They
don't understand that this is an extra burden for women and a curse
to womanhood. They have been following it blindly." He also added,
"But I have observed slight changes in the women after we started
adult and women education."
Blinded by superstition
The former minister Bhakta Bahadur Balayar, who hails
from Doti district, agrees, "The people in that part of the country
are backward and blinded by superstition. We politicians have continuously
tried to convince people to discard such superstitions," he said.
"One reason may be that officials of the local bodies come from the
same community and are not willing to cast off deep rooted traditions
quickly. But we have started observing changes in the town areas like
Dhangadi."5
An increasing number of women have travelled to the
cities to get an education and no longer participate in chhaupadi. "I
used to be among those women who used to spend a week every month out in
the chhaupadi goth whenever I had my period. Not any more. I not only stay
inside the house and carry on my normal activities now, but I also have
many many converts in the district," said Lali Rawal, a member of the
District Development Committee in the Achham district. She was so
determined to change herself after she shared her experiences of moving
outdoors at a Beijing conference in 1994. She has been successful in
converting at least four or five households in every one of 75 Village
Development Committees in the Achham district.5
Male dominance
Human rights officials and activists who have been
working in the region point out that this system is a violation of human
rights, namely the right to health and other general rights of women. They
attribute this in part to the cultural acceptance of male dominance over
women. They say that progress can be achieved only through sexual and
social equality.
Twice a week, the state owned Radio Nepal broadcasts
programmes to raise awareness of chhaupadi and the reproductive health
rights of women. And a few organisations have been involved in curbing the
practice. But these are only just starting to help change a tradition that
has been killing women unnecessarily for hundreds of years.
Laxmi Vilas Ghimire fifth year medical student, Institute of Medicine, Maharajgunj Campus, Kathmandu, Nepal
Email: vilas_laxmi@iom.edu.np
studentBMJ 2005;13:177-220 May ISSN 0966-6494
- Panta LD. Chhaupadi system: a religious blemish. Rising Nepal 2002 Oct 10.
- Shrestha BK, Karnali lok sanskriti. part 3. Kathmandu: Royal Nepal Academy, 1971.
- Dhakal S. Age old superstition. Spotlight Weekly 2003 Sep 12-Sep 20;23(12).
- Shrestha R. High hopes on CARE, Care Nepal Newsletter; Feb 2001, vol 6, no1, page 27.
- Rupa Joshi, Freedom to stay indoors, Nepali Times, April 2001.
