JTW
Op-Ed, Andrew E. Tchie*
5 February 2015 - For many women, the monthly menstruation cycle can be a
time of emotional upheaval and personal discomfort. For many women, having
the personal comfort of a partner or a husband to help them during this
period is an added benefit. However, in some countries many women are
forced to get married at an age when they are still trying to comprehend
the changes taking place within their own bodies, while simultaneously
trying to get on with the everyday routines of being a woman, mother and a
worker. This period is compounded by the fact that, for many women, this
monthly cycle is deemed by members of their families, communities and
religious conservatives as a form of uncleanliness - or a curse that
resides within.
For many women in the far western parts of Nepal, Chhaupadi - a woman’s
monthly menstrual cycle - is looked upon as a repulsive time that
necessitates the expulsion of many women on their periods from their homes
by loved ones only to live in cow, bull, or goat sheds during the 4-5 day
period. This is a very ancient practice, which was the norm for every
culture in the world at one time or another, and therefore it is up to
every culture to find their own way into a modernity that is appropriate
for them. We often admire ancient cultures for keeping to their own faith
and traditions, and so we must accept the good with the bad and try to
understand the myths behind the practices. The irony behind this is that
most of these women are cast out and deemed untouchable by the very
partners whom claim to love, honour and cherish their wives. The same
partners whose wives feed them every month, comfort them when they are ill,
encourage them when things get hard and carry and bear their children for 9
months, only to be inflicted with child birthing pain for months after the
delivery. As much as science has advanced and despite the fact that
scientists are now able to place men under simulation to experience similar
pains, we will never be able to comprehend the full process that women will
have to go through.
The Kingdom of Jumla and the War against Chhaupudi
Even though Nepal expeditiously signed and ratified the 1979 UN General
Assembly Resolution on the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination
against Women (CEDAW) on February 5, 1991, it took over a decade before the
Nepalese Supreme Court in 2005 forced the Nepalese government to outlaw the
separation between men and women during womens’ menstrual cycles.
Nevertheless, in many parts of western Nepal that are distant from the
capital, underdeveloped and lack real infrastructure, the realities of this
torture are still on going for many women. One particular place where women
are burdened with this experience is the hilly district of Jumla. The
Kingdom of Jumla was one of the many kingdoms to dot Nepal before it was
unified by King Prithivi Narayan Shah and later by his son Bahadur Shah.
The Kingdom of Jumla was one of the most powerful kingdoms in west Nepal,
repelling King Prithivi Narayan Shah’s first attack. Legend even has it
that the king was injured in the battle.
One of the women fighting this long tradition of female expulsion is Ms
Radha Paudel - known to many as the “female Rebel” for the way she
confronts and takes on men three times her size who directly or complicity
place their wives in the cow shed during their cycle. For Paudel, “it is
not only inhuman for women to be treated in this way, but [considering] the
fact that women spend more of their time, income and energy on building the
home and looking after loved ones it surprises me that women in Jumla are
put through these appalling circumstances”. For Paudel and her organisation
Actions Works Nepal, the focus is on empowering the women of Jumla and the
surrounding districts by putting on workshops and educational sessions.
What is more concerning for Paudel is the fact that even though during the
winter season the conditions in Jumla can drop below -30 degrees Celsius,
many of these women are still not “allowed into the home during this period
with several of the women enduring death” because of the extreme weather.
Educating to Liberate
This is not only a Hindu issue, there is a need for collective action by
all women to come together and obliterate the means that facilitate this
malpractice against women in all societies. According to a United Nations
field bulletin on the issue, women across the globe who are placed under
these conditions are often sexually assaulted during the expulsion or
abducted from the huts, while others have died from asphyxiation or fire
while trying to ward off the cold. The fear of menstrual blood is connected
to respect for feminine power, both in its good and terrible aspects (as in
life and death). The being that can give life is also the being who can
take it. And so the deep-seated fear of menstrual blood, which our nice and
tidy societies would deem ridiculous, is a part of the tradition of
menstrual exile in Nepal. Nonetheless, there is no evidence that menstrual
blood is unclean or dangerous and therefore it has often been concluded
that these traditions exist largely as an entrenched cultural norm.
While places like Jumla remain stuck in the past, it is clear that one of
the major ways to eradicate this problem is to edify women not only in the
capital Kathmandu, where many people flock, but also in places like Jumla,
where it is women who are the true human capital. Female school attendance
is of particular importance, as made evident in Nepal’s gender disparate
literacy rates: only 24 per cent of females are literate, compared to 52
per cent of males. For less developed nations in particular, women may
embody a previously untapped source of human capital, and of those, the
countries that have embraced more aggressive policies in regards to gender
equality in education can be expected to see greater social and economic
returns. Findings from a variety of countries indicate that educating girls
is one of the most cost-effective ways to reduce poverty, but dropout rates
for adolescent girls still remain high.
From Curse to Exaltation
According to a study by Annamalai University in India’s southern Tamil Nadu
region, the notion of women in the Hindu religion is tied to philosophies
of women’s “virtue” and “purity”. Nepal is a Hindu dominated society and
there is a general perception that menstruation is repulsive, untouchable,
religiously filthy and ritualistically unclean. In this regard, according
to a 2007 report from the Journal of World Health and Societal Politics,
some religions view the impurity as strictly spiritual while others fear
physical danger thus necessitating the practice of menstrual exile for
women who in many religions are considered Sudra- in Hinduism; in other
religions the menstruation is considered to be the result of sin. This
conduct can also still be found in Judaist, Buddhist, Islamic and Christian
theosophy. “Every major religion views the menstruating woman as impure,
despite the fact that there is nothing inherently impure about the
process.” In spite of this, the work of Nepal-based advocates like Radha
Paudel that seeks to move the tide of restrictions against women away from
Nepalese society continues.
Nonetheless, with the recent call by Rastriya Prajatantra, whose party has
recently come to prominence, for Nepal to return to a Hindu State, there is
more reason to be concerned for the future of women subjected to this
practice and the need to eradicate it altogether from all parts of Nepal.
Considering that leaders can use religion as a way of entrapping societies,
the return of Nepal to a Hindu state would only add to the social
inequality and isolation that women are already enduring. Changing a
practice that is so wrapped in the history of religion itself may be an
uphill battle when it comes to Chhaupadi, which is facilitated by what
advocates for women call “conservative concepts.”
For many girls, simply accepting Chhaupadi as an unquestionable way of life
is an everyday reality. As much as Chhaupadi is ingrained and embedded in
Nepalese society, some families don't practice it at all, yet others
believe the gods will punish them if they stop. This period of a woman’s
life should be seen as a creative, spiritual time that will likely benefit
the communities if they honour the divine feminine power. However, society
as a whole needs to do more to make women feel safe and clean and to
provide them with security. Women need to be allowed in temples and given
the opportunity to be the leaders and the backbones of our societies.
Curbing the Problem for the next Generation
According to a UNICEF report, 95 per cent of girls who were surveyed in
Nepal’s far western regions faced some sort of restriction when having
their first periods. The report found that 44 per cent of the girls
observed were placed under Chhaupadi - this included forbidding them from
touching books, boys or men, and forcing them to sleep and eat in places
separate from other family members. Several of the young girls were not
allowed to attend school and not allowed to touch books for three to seven
days per month. In the long run this practice may not only impact a women’s
education, but also become counter productive to moving and building a
stable, prosperous, and democratic Nepal. Why? Well according to the UN,
this is a quick way to negatively interfere with a girl’s education, and
given that women and young girls count for more than half of the world’s
domestic population and hold the potential to increase a country’s GDP by
almost 3 to 4 per cent, barring them from education, whatever the grounds,
can be deeply harmful to national development.
Attending school has been shown to have a positive effect on girls’ lives
today, as well as their futures. When girls attend school, they are more
likely to marry later and to have fewer children. They are less likely to
be the victim of domestic violence. Their income is more likely to be
higher than those with less schooling. Paudel argues that the fight for
“women’s rights will continue, but it is not a fight that I alone can win”,
adding that, “we need to make sure that rather than letting the start of
women’s periods mean the end of education for girls around the world, we
need to shift the debate towards education and raising awareness among
girls and boys, and women and men about the negative cultural impacts of
menstruation on women’s education.”
Communities and societies as a whole need to do more to make sure that
girls and women do not continue to grow up in retribution during their
monthly cycles. Similarly, we need to prevent the vicious behaviours that
exile women after they have given birth, forcing them to remain isolated
with their new-born for up to 10 days - until they are considered what
their society deems “clean.” As the government of Nepal continues to be
entrenched in political quarrel, more and more women are being raped
because men knew when and where they were menstruating and that they would
therefore be alone and isolated. The government of Nepal needs to play a
constructive role in this matter instead of focusing all its resources on
pointless activities such as the South Asian Association for Regional
Cooperation (SAARC) that places economic gains at the doors of those
residing in Kathmandu. More regulations need to be put into place to
protect vulnerable women living under these harsh conditions, because most
of the current regulations are ineffective in districts like Jumla.
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