Features
2 MIN READ
Nepal criminalises isolation of menstruating women...
Nepal's parliament Wednesday criminalised an ancient Hindu practice that banishes women from the home during menstruation.
Many communities in Nepal view menstruating women as impure and in some remote areas they are forced to sleep in a hut away from home during their periods, a custom known as chhaupadi.
The new law stipulates a three-month jail sentence or a 3,000 rupee fine ($30), or both, for anyone forcing a woman to follow the custom.
"A woman during her menstruation or post-natal state should not kept in chhaupadi or treated with any kind of similar discrimination or untouchable and inhuman behaviour," reads the law, passed in an unanimous vote.
It will only come into effect in a year's time.
Chhaupadi is linked to Hinduism and considers women untouchable when they menstruate, as well as after childbirth.
They are banished from the home -- barred from touching food, religious icons, cattle and men -- and forced to sleep in basic huts known as chhau goth.
Last month a teenage girl died after being bitten by a snake while sleeping in a chhau goth.
Two other women died in late 2016 in separate incidents while also following the ritual -- one of smoke inhalation after she lit a fire for warmth, while the other death was unexplained.
Rights activists say many other deaths likely go unreported.
The Supreme Court banned chhaupadi more than a decade ago but it is still followed in parts of Nepal, particularly in remote western districts.
Lawmaker Krishna Bhakta Pokhrel, who was part of the committee that pushed through the bill, said he hoped the new law would finally see an end to the custom.
"Chhaupadi didn't end, because there was no law to punish people even after the Supreme Court outlawed the practice," Pokhrel said.
Women's rights activist Pema Lhaki described the law as unenforceable because it is related to a deeply entrenched belief system that is harder to change.
"It's a fallacy that it's men who make the woman do this. Yes, Nepal's patriarchal society plays a part but it's the women who make themselves follow chhaupadi," she told AFP.
"They need to understand the root cause, have strategic interventions and then wait a generation," she added.
Features
5 min read
As no formal orders have been placed and no agreements drawn up, even the Health Minister is looking to the gods.
COVID19
Perspectives
5 min read
The world’s largest missionary movement cannot be blamed exclusively for its role in the Covid19 pandemic
COVID19
News
5 min read
The Valley’s CDOs got the government’s green light to clamp strict measures on account of rising case numbers
Explainers
Perspectives
5 min read
Public quarantine facilities are becoming time-bombs; it’s time to rely on home quarantine
Opinions
7 min read
Dependence on imported chemical fertilisers has made Nepal’s farmers vulnerable on more than one front
Perspectives
7 min read
A shadow economy has been flourishing amid unchecked corruption, money laundering and rampant impunity
Features
6 min read
When it comes to climate change, Global media attention has stayed on island nations but the Himalaya have their own unique vulnerabilities.
Opinions
6 min read
The upper-caste resistance to the term ‘dalit’ shows a refusal to let go of long-standing Hindu caste-based hierarchy
