Banished for Bleeding

Chhaupadi is the practice, documented in far western Nepal and adjoining districts, of banishing menstruating women and girls, and in some communities also women who have recently given birth, from the family home to a separate shed, cattle byre or outbuilding, justified by a claim of ritual impurity attached to menstrual blood that the practice treats as too dangerous or polluting to remain under the same roof as the rest of the household, particularly its religious objects and its male members. Unlike several other menstrual restriction customs documented elsewhere in this atlas, which vary considerably in severity from mild ritual seclusion to simple temple avoidance, chhaupadi as practised in its documented Nepali form has directly and repeatedly caused deaths, from exposure to cold, from smoke inhalation when women light fires for warmth in poorly ventilated sheds, from snake bites and animal attacks, and from suffocation, a pattern of serious, recurring physical harm that distinguishes chhaupadi from most other religiously framed menstrual restriction practices in severity and documented consequence.