Nepal: Stand Up for Women's Rights!

For thousands of years, menstruating females living in Nepal have been subjected to a bizarre type of shunning called “chaupadi.” This tradition is rooted in the misguided belief that when a female is menstruating she can spread disease upon people and animals, make the gods angry, and bring a curse to all she gets near. They are forced to sleep and eat outside in a harsh, primitive shelter that is usually not much more than a makeshift hut with no floor or protection from the elements. They risk beatings if they get too close. The emotional and physical abuse menstruating females endure in Nepal must stop!

Cecile Shrestha of Wateraid, a nonprofit trying to raise awareness states in an NPR report: "When they are menstruating, no matter what, they stay outside, they eat outside and they sleep outside."

Chaupadi is not limited to poor females living in primitive villages, it also occurs among more affluent citizens. For example, a young woman named Prakriti who is part of a progressive family who allows her to go to college and express her opinions is also shunned when menstruating. She’s not even allowed to step inside of the family kitchen during this time. Once, when her father got sick she was blamed for his illness because she had touched him while on her period!

Join the movement to end the practice of chaupadi in Nepal. Tell Nepal's Prime Minister to do more to promote public education efforts to eliminate taboos that punish women for menstruating!