28 May is Menstrual Hygiene Day, which also sheds light on how many women are discriminated against during their period. A report from Nepal, where the NGO Apeiron works with women who want to break free from a sexist and dangerous custom.
Isolated as impure. Imprisoned like witches. Killed in accidents in the shacks where they had been locked away. From their first period, in the remote mountainous west of Nepal, girls and women are subjected to chaupadi. "It is an ancestral, rural belief that has no basis whatsoever in Hindu sacred texts. A vaguely defined superstition passed down orally," says Barbara Monachesi, head of Apeiron onlus in the Asian country, speaking from the capital Kathmandu.
"According to this patriarchal imposition," she continues, "during the days of their cycle females are considered contaminated and bringers of misfortune for their family and community. They are therefore sent away and forced to stay in a hut called a chaugoth. They cannot see adult males — not even their husbands, fathers or brothers. They are forbidden from entering the kitchen, touching food or water sources. Another woman may stay with them, but must sleep in a separate place."
Last winter, two tragic incidents occurred. A mother, Amba Bohora, her two children, and a few weeks later a young woman, Pravati Bogati, were found dead in their chaugoth. All four had inhaled toxic fumes after lighting fires to keep warm. Every year women die in the huts where they are "exiled" during their period, but no estimate of these events exists. In these wild regions of Nepal, it also happens that chaugoth are attacked by tigers or other ferocious animals.
On Menstrual Hygiene Day, which falls on 28 May, the Italian Monachesi recalls that in some parts of the world — the poorest ones — the period is still a taboo. A trained lawyer, aged 45, she has been directing various projects in Nepal since 2005 on women's empowerment — that is, in favour of gender equality — and against violence against women, which is endemic in the Himalayan republic.
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25 per cent of the female population aged 15 and over has experienced violence from a partner, but the number of women who have been violated and have not reported it could be higher, according to a 2018 United Nations survey. The last census, conducted in 2011, estimates that among Nepalese brides, 750,000 are aged between 10 and 14, and approximately half of them between 15 and 19.
Apeiron's Casa Nepal centre in Kathmandu takes in around forty people, including women who have fled abuse and their children. It offers training courses designed to make them financially independent: cooking, catering, dressmaking, beauty, and crafts. Away from the capital, in remote areas without hospitals or schools, it instead seeks to launch and support micro-enterprises run by housewives, farmers and livestock keepers.
In the western district of Jumla, in Ripi, the Apeiron team — made up of Nepalese staff with the exception of Barbara — discovered that chaupadi was still being practised, almost by chance. "When we went there in 2017 to make local bean farming more productive, the women started telling us about this custom," Monachesi continues. "One clarification: we did not 'convince' them to abandon this discriminatory practice. While we were helping them sell the produce from their vegetable gardens and their chickens, the wives who had previously been entirely dependent on their husbands began to feel more confident and stronger. At meetings they increasingly compared notes on the harm they had suffered during menstruation, until they wanted to declare themselves free from every harmful belief. A process of self-awareness began, and it is still ongoing."
At the beginning of May, indeed, 88 women from the village of Ripi publicly renounced chaupadi. Men and local authorities also took part in this event, while the women sang a song about their story of liberation.
The use of disposable sanitary pads, taken for granted in the West, is out of reach in the most disadvantaged areas of the planet. In Nepal, only wealthy urban women can afford to spend around one euro on a packet. Others use washable cloths, often of poor quality and a hindrance to daily activities. In the Indian documentary Il ciclo del progresso, which last February won the 2019 Oscar for best short film, some secondary school girls are shown dropping out of school because they cannot change and because of extreme embarrassment. Monachesi adds that the same thing happens in neighbouring Nepal, where girls make do with rags or simply layer multiple garments. Infections and severe iron deficiencies are commonplace. The community also rejects them because of their dirty, unhygienic appearance.
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"I got in touch with Muruganantha, the creator of Pad project, which features in the Indian film set outside Delhi. We too wanted to produce our own sanitary pads," explains the head of Apeiron, "as the protagonists of the short film manage to do, but in Nepal sourcing the raw materials is complicated. Up to now this small nation has imported almost everything from India, with high transport costs.
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On top of that, the internal road network is inadequate, and it would be almost impossible to reach the remote village of Ripi in the Himalayas. It takes at least three days to get there, whether by plane or by car, plus an additional six hours on foot from the nearest town." Apeiron pays close attention to eco-sustainability. Monachesi hopes that one day an effective, safe solution with a lower environmental impact can be found for all Nepalese women.
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From a political standpoint, it is already a major milestone that the Kathmandu government in 2017 declared the practice of chaupadi a crime, even though the new law is not yet respected everywhere. Indeed, Nepal has embarked on a path of renewal over the past ten years. Following the civil war between Maoist guerrillas and the army (1996–2006), which claimed 19,000 lives, and the end of an authoritarian monarchy, the federal republic was proclaimed in 2008. A new constitution that also includes gender quotas in politics was adopted somewhat later, in 2015.
The earthquake of that same year, which claimed more than eight thousand lives, slowed the country's democratic and economic development, but did not halt it. Monachesi recalls that, while visiting camps for earthquake survivors, she met a mother who told her she did not have her daughter with her: "Her period had come and she had sent her away somewhere. Even in a situation like that… Living here with my own girls, I could never have imagined not having them by my side."
The law is not enough when mentality prevents women from living with dignity. The authorities have had many chaugoth demolished, but others have been rebuilt by villagers. Here the wind of the #MeToo movement, which breaks the silence on violence, has not arrived as it has in India, where there are more spaces for emancipation and greater economic wealth. "A social problem cannot be examined as an isolated element," concludes Monachesi, as religious chanting can be heard coming from Casa Nepal.
Sunset approaches, the Hindu farewell to the day gone by: "In Nepal women work like slaves, from morning to night in the fields, in the stables, in the home, but they receive no pay whatsoever. Every earning goes to the husband or the head of the family. And even among educated, 'middle-class' women, some tell me that the isolation of chaupadi is a respite from domestic toil. This is where patriarchy takes root: women are not even allowed to feel tired and to rest."