KATHMANDU, Feb. 14 -- The practice of chhaupadi in which women in western Nepal are banished to cow sheds during their periods grabs a lot of media attention within Nepal and internationally, eclipsing the much more widespread and entrenched menstrual restrictions in the rest of Nepal.
As cruel and inhumane as chhaupadi is, journalistic coverage as usual tends to be event-focused, headlining only deaths due to suffocation, snakebites or exposure. There is little context to explain that the practice is now much less widespread as literacy improves, and after it was outlawed.
As public health specialist Aruna Uprety reports from Accham in this issue (page 14-15), young women and mothers across western Nepal are now defying this superstition...