CreditTara Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times. <http://www.nytimes.com/by/jeffrey-gettleman> Jeffrey Gettleman, June 19, 2018. “I still can’t believe she’s not alive,” said Dambar Budha, her father-in-law, full of regret, sitting on a rock, staring off into the hills…last January, Ms. Bayak’s lifeless body was carried up the hill, a stream of mourners bawling behind her. Her remains were burned, her dresses given away. The little hut where she was pressured to sequester herself during her menstrual period ­ and where she died­ was smashed apart, erasing the last mark of another young life lost to a deadly superstition…

“Each year, at least one woman or girl,­ often more,­ dies in these huts, from exposure to the cold, smoke inhalation or attacks by animals. Just this June, another young woman was found dead in a menstruation hut, bitten by a snake. Her family tried to cover up the death, the police said, by destroying the hut and quickly burying her body, but the authorities exhumed it and are investigating what happened.

The practice is called chhaupadi (pronounced CHOW-pa-dee), from Nepali words that mean someone who bears an impurity, and it has been going on for hundreds of years. But now, the Nepali government and advocates for women are trying to end it. Starting in August, for the first time, it will be a crime to force a menstruating woman into seclusion, punishable by up to three months in jail, though it’s not clear if that’s going to make a dent in the tradition.” Deepa Bohara Mijar, STF Scholar at BlinkNow

For more information on the practice and those fighting against it:

https://medium.com@shesthefirst/perspectives-the-practice-of-chhaupadi-8b398d452rdc