Always chasing women when it comes to menstrual periods in Nepal

During the menstrual period, these women suffer from living in temporary sheds or sleeping with animals .

Hindu spiritual culture is extremely rich. But few people know that, to this day, Hindus also apply many "special" practices to women and one of them is Chaupadi - to drive away women when they come to Nepal.

Jaukala (14) suffers from living in a temporary warehouse because she is coming to the red light.

Chaupadi is a traditional Hindu activity for centuries. Accordingly, the woman will be chased away by everyone when they go to the menstrual period because they think it is an impurity.

Sometimes, these women must live with the goat herd.

During this time, women (including children reaching puberty) are not allowed to touch kitchen utensils, sharing a water source with the rest of the family. In addition, they are not allowed to go to school, even driven out of their homes, to stay in huts, rudimentary camps or cow sheds.

Images of people who are living in isolation at the stone seam in Kalekanda village, Nepal.

More horribly, they were not allowed to bathe or brush their hair. Being chased out of tents, tents are separate but essential items to chase wild beasts, insects, poisonous snakes are absolutely not available.

Not only that, the risk of these women being extremely raped is because they have to live in separate places. The unhygienic environment puts them at risk for infectious, infectious, respiratory diseases.

Do not stop there, women after childbirth are also considered unclean and must live in isolation with similar conditions. Too weak and losing strength after the "labor out", plus that without the care of the family caused many pitiful deaths of the mother and daughter.

A group of young women are chatting before sleeping under a stone seam.

The time after birth is a torture for Nepalese women. Too much blood loss, severe infection due to medical conditions is not guaranteed, but they must try to take care of their young child without receiving any help from relatives. Because of that, there are many cases where the mother and daughter after birth for a few days have died early.

For Hindus, this Chaupadi custom is a religious tradition associated with spirituality. According to legend, the gods will vent their anger on a woman's family with her period. Therefore, in order to prevent families from having a calamity, they were forced to leave home, suffering from extreme hardship these days.

Nabina (17 years old) with Khadi (14 years old) are huddling in the fire in the family cellar.

Although traditional, its consequences have gone beyond what tradition or religion can accept. Girls who reach puberty will suffer many psychological shocks, live in fear, worry about going through hard days.

After the menstrual cycle ends, the women must bathe with cow urine. Nepalese people believe that only cow urine has enough purity and cleanliness to remove this filth.

Temporary shacks were built - the shelter of Nepalese women during their menstrual period.

This indicates discrimination against Nepalese women. In addition to being exposed to many dangers, they must resist the risk of being raped by the village man. This shows their disdain for women.

Pressed and pressured by parents, Nepalese women increasingly slumped because of less education and living under the older people in the village.

Women who dare to break the tradition will face an extremely violent reaction to boycott of the whole village. These have pushed women into isolation, without a voice. But change is not easy. Just like the roots of trees have been ingrained for generations, every change will be deemed too radical and unrealistic.

Due to not sharing the water with the villagers, this woman was forced to travel far to find water.

Women are not equipped with the necessary knowledge, even if they do not know how to use clean bandages, they have to put blood on clothes. Topics like 'puberty' or something like that in the family are always taboo, especially for women because they think that shows disrespect to adults and brings about infamy to the family.

Shobha - a young Nepalese woman who is fortunate to interact with the modern world when she meets a girl from CARE (Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe - a humanitarian organization supporting international development). She was in a medical facility instead of living in camps to ensure safety and sanitary conditions.

This girl has spent "a good night's sleep" with her cattle.

Thereby, Shobha learned how to use clean towels when the day arrived and now no longer has to go back and forth in the village with bloody clothes. This shows that community education is essential and effective but it needs to be done gently, without imposition.

Maisara (15 years old) was about to sleep in an open stone seam while following the custom of Chaupadi.

Nepalese women also need to know whether they have the choice to do traditional - or profane - this or not. CARE Foundation in Nepal and a number of other countries are trying to increase the influence of law and education on the behavior of the Hindu community in the world to partially reform these scary practices.