Criminalised, Still Practised

Nepal's Supreme Court ordered the practice ended as early as 2005, and the Nepali government subsequently issued formal guidelines aimed at eliminating chhaupadi and, in 2017, criminalised the practice outright through legislation imposing fines and imprisonment on those who force a woman into chhaupadi exile, making Nepal one of the few states to have taken direct legal action specifically against a menstrual restriction practice on public safety and human rights grounds. Despite this legal prohibition, chhaupadi has proven difficult to eliminate on the ground, persisting in various forms across parts of far western Nepal due to deeply rooted local religious and social belief that outpaces formal legal change, and continued fatalities have been reported in Nepali and international press coverage in the years since criminalisation, prompting ongoing government, non governmental and community based public health and education campaigns aimed at ending the underlying belief and social pressure rather than relying on legal prohibition alone. The atlas records chhaupadi as a documented, named practice with real, repeatedly fatal consequences and a clear, formal legal status as a criminal offence in Nepal, information the practice's continuing persistence makes directly relevant rather than merely historical.