Chhaupadi:
A Socio-cultural Practice during Menstruation in Far Western Nepal
This paper is prepared as a partial fulfilment of the course requirement on Advance Course
on Social Norms and Its implications in Programming which was held in University of
Pennylvania on July 2-13, 2012. In this paper, attempt has been made to showcase
Chhaupadi: a social practice in Western part of Nepal as a discriminatory against
adolescent girls and to some extent also a gende-based violence against girls during the
menstruating period. Focus of the paper is to suggest intervention strategies to change it
through Community Approach.
Chhaupadi: A Harmful Practice
It is a social tradition in the far western part of Nepal for Hindu women which prohibits a
woman from participating in normal family activities during menstruation because they are
considered impure. The women are kept out of the house and have to live in a shed. This lasts
ten to eleven days when an adolescent girl has her first period and four to seven for every
following one. Childbirth also results in a ten to eleven-day confinement for a woman with
the new born baby
During this time, women
Chhaupadi Practicing Districts in Nepal
are forbidden to touch men
or even to enter the
courtyard of their own
homes. They are barred
from consuming milk,
yogurt, butter, meat, and
other nutritious foods, for
fear they will forever mar
those goods. The women
must survive on a diet of
dry foods, salt, and rice.
They cannot use warm blankets and are allowed only a small rug; most commonly only
things like jute sacks. They are also restricted from going to school or performing their daily
functions like taking a bath, forced to stay in the barbaric conditions of the shed. The
community believes that if she does not observe this rule and tries to do something against
this, the god is going to be really mad and bring harms to the family and also to the whole
community. Therefore, they make sure that every menstruating girl follows the rule. This
social practice is called “Chhaupadi”.
HUMLA
DARCHULA
BAJHANG
MUGU
BAITADI
BAJURA
DADELDHURA
JUMLA
KALIKOT
DOTI
ACHHAM
DOLPA
MUSTANG
KANCHANPUR
DAILEKH
KAILALI
JAJARKOT
MANANG
RUKUM
SURKHET
MYAGDI
SALYAN
BARDIYA
GORKHA
KASKI
ROLPA
LAMJUNG
PARBAT
BANKE
PYUTHAN
DANG
RASUWA
GULMI
ARGHAK
HACHI
KAPILBASTU
SYANGJA
TANAHU
SINDHUPALCHOK
NUWAKOT
PALPA
DHADING
RUPAN- NAWAL
CHITWAN
DEHI PARASI
MAKAWANPUR
DOLAKHA
KATHMMANDU
BHAK
LALIT
SULUKHUMBU
SANKHUWASABA
KAVRE
TAPLEJUNG
OKHALDHUNGA
PARSA
RAUTBARAAHAT
SINDHULI
KHOTANG
UDAYAPUR
Districts where Chhaupadi is practcing
TERHATHUM
BHOJPUR
DHANKUTA
PANCHTHAR
ILAM
SIRAHA
MORANG
SAPTARI
SUNSARI
JHAPA
Historical Context of Chhaupadi Practice
Root of the Chhaupadi is based on religious belief and expectations from women in the
society. Hindu religion has categorised all human beings into 4 hierarchical groups with
specific schemata (script) for each group: they are as follows:
1. Brahmin: People who are wise and learned by profession. In Sanskrit, they are called
“Pandit” who imparts learning to all and are the teachers and guides.
2. Chhetri: People who are the warrior class who are in front line in national defence
profession;
3. Vaishya: People who are skilled professionals, businessmen and artists; and
4. Shudra: People whose profession is cleaning public places, butchering and any
“undesirable” activities to be performed by the common people. This group is called
“untouchables” and in Nepal also called as Dalits.
The fourth group of people live in their own community and are not allowed to enter the
house of the above 3 high class groups. The high class group does not accept any food from
this group. Even in tea shops they are expected to clean their own cups after drinking the tea.
This practice, they believe is from Vedic period and it is still practiced in Far Western Nepal.
According to the Hindu religion, female falls into the fourth category of people 4 days a
month when they are menstruating. This religious belief is the root cause for practicing this
social norm.
Impact of Chhaupadi on Girls’ Everyday Lives
Educational Implications:
As mentioned above, girls who are menstruating are not allowed to mingle with others, not
allowed to go to temple and touch anything that has to do with the god. First of all, Hindus
believe that a school is a temple where Goddess Sarswoti1 resides. There is a normative
expectation from the school that the community thinks menstruating girls should not enter the
temple. This restricts a menstruating girl going to school during these days. Even during the
examination time, they are not allowed to go to school. In any case, a girl ventures to go and
if the school management finds out, she is in trouble and thrown out of the classroom. There
has been some media reporting on this issue when a girl who was attending a final
examination, she had been thrown out of the examination hall when the head teacher found
out about it.
Reflection of this normative expectation has been a “wrecking ball” for a good number of
adolescent girls who are not vey inspired to go to school. When they miss out 4-11 days a
month in the school, there has been some consequences on the homework to be done and
other negative reinforcement from teachers and school management. Nationally, 44.2% of
adolescent girls currently aged 15-19 dropped out from secondary school. 21.3% have never
been in school.
Physical Safety and Condition of Living Implications:
The geographical area in Far Western Nepal where the Chhaupadi is practiced is very widely
known for attacks by animals and reptiles, such as leopard and also snakes. There have been
1
Sarswoti is a goddess of learning.
many cases where the girls were stung by snake and dragged by leopard while they are in
Chhaupadi. One of the twitters has written that:
Chhaupadi ritual and culture can be a serious ‘matter of life and death’ for many girls
and women in Nepal, especially those living in the western districts. Winter months
are exceptionally critical for girls and women isolated in menstrual sheds. “A person
with severe hypothermia may be unconscious and may not seem to have a pulse or to
be breathing”, explains the U.S. Center for Disease Control report. “In this case,
handle the victim gently, and get emergency assistance immediately”.
Two weeks after the 2010 death of Belu Damai, another chhaupadi death occurred in
Nepal’s Achham district. The January 17 death of thirty-five year old Jhupridevi
Hudke happened when low temperatures hit the region. Hudke died inside a hut in the
village of Payal after staying in a menstrual shed for five days. Her eight-month-old
son, who was with her at the time, was found unconscious.
This is one of the staunch socio-cultural practices practiced in Nepal and also considered as
gender based violence against women and adolescent girls. When this practice is analyzed in
terms of the theoretical framework, the following things are very obvious:
Factual Belief: If a mensuarating girl disobeys the rule, god will be angry and her family
will face a bad luck; which may range from falling sick to some natural disastersfire in the community, sudden death of a cattle2 and even a family member,
cows/buffalos suddenly stop giving milk. If she touches a tree it will never again
bear fruit. All of these are bad luck for any rural agro-based economy family.
Moreover, if there is any disaster in the community, the blame goes to the girl
who just had observed the Chhaupadi, and will be accused of not observing with
full purity. If she reads a book, Saraswati, the goddess of education, will become
angry. If she touches a man, he will be ill. One article written by Nirmala Kandel
and et al states that “She will become sexually dangerous and harm would come
to any partners' genitals and person cannot have sex and could be harmful to
family members, village etc if the seclusion is broken. If these women were
unable to maintain these traditions, their community would be shattered and
would no longer survive”.
Conditional Preference: No family wants to get disgrace from the community. It is not
only the issue of a girl not observing, but the whole family gets deprecated. The
family does not get invitation in community events. With these reasons, parental
as well as girls’ preference will follow the rules of Chhaupadi whenever other
members of the community to do and expect them to do so to simply follow the
rule and observe the Chhaupadi.
Empirical Expectation: Community members generally expect that every girl in that
community goes to live in Chhaupadi for four to seven days during their
mensuration period. She does not observe any religious activities, does not touch
2
Cattle is a very important asset for any family in rural Nepal. There is even a saying that “if a wife dies, you
can marry again, but if a cattle dies, it is a financial loss”
anything that has to do with the religious rituals or god. She does not go to school
during this period.
Normative Expectation: Every parent/in-laws believes that the community expects any
menstruating girl should observe this rule strictly, failed to adhere, will result in
family bad luck.
According to Mockus, any behavior and any decision is influenced by three regulatory
systems, a legal system, a moral system and the social system. The legal system influences
actions by respect for law and fear of punishment, the moral through moral esteem and guilty,
and the social through acceptance and shame has to be analyzed in 3 different systems of
norms. Trying to analyze the Chhaupadi in Mockus’s framework, it can be seen as follows:
Associated
types of
Emotion
Positive
Negative
Legal Formal Norm
(Respect Law)
Moral Norm
(Conscience)
Social Norm
(Belongingness)
Not Applicable at
this point.
However, there is a
recent news in the
internet that a case
has been filed by
the women lawyers
in the Supreme
Court to ban the
Chhaupadi.
It is self-gratifying for girls as well as
for the family by complying with
religious values and personal
normative beliefs
Acceptance from the
society and Image
incentive is high
Girls and menstruating women go
through the Fear of Guilt for not
complying with personal normative
beliefs.
In case of taking risk
and not complying the
normative
expectation, there is
always a Fear of Social
Disapproval or
Rejection
Note: Girls and menstruating women lack education on mensuration hygiene, empowerment to
increase the self- empowerment. Moreover, older generation (mothers/ mother-in-laws,
husbands) need to be brought towards the “common knowledge” on the normalcy of the
phenomena of mensuration. It is very obvious among the young people that they do not want to
adhere this practice, but they need firm support from the older generation to make them feel guilt
free. Normative expectation of the older generation has to be changed along with young people
who are already in a “tipping point”. The “script” of the Chhaupadi curse has to be changed to a
positive behaviour.
Argument on Chhaupadi as a Social Norm
Biccheiri in her presentation, defines Social Norm, as “a pattern of behavior such that
individuals prefer to conform to it on condition that they believe that (a) most people in their
relevant network conform to it (empirical expectation), and (b) that most people in their
relevant network believe they ought to conform to it (normative expectation)” If they do not
conform it there is a social consequences. She has also very well discussed about the “Belief
Traps ”by giving example from a UNICEF study on Violence on Children. In the study it was
found that the caregivers do not consider punishment as positive measure to discipline
children, still large number of care givers are still practicing punishment to the children.
Similar evidence can be found in Chhaupadi practice. From informal discussion with young
girls it is very clear that they are against the practice, but they seemed to be still practicing
partially due to their belief traps than due to factual beliefs. A women who runs a tea shop in
the village, has clearly said in an TV interview that she has stopped observing this practice, as
“everything that goes wrong, the blame is on women, anyway. People fall sick, die and these
are natural phenomena”. . She also mentions that some customers have stopped coming to
her tea shop, just because she is considerate as social “outlaw”, but she does not care and her
husband does not care either. According to Biccheiri and Fukui(1999) a trendsetter questions
“the standing norm and starts behaving differently to effect a change”(Bicchieri & Mercier,
no date). This woman can be viewed as a “trendsetter” and in personal communication with
young girls in the community, the writer can confirm that they are in the “belief traps” rather
than “pluralistic ignorance”. People talk negatively on this practice very openly but at the
end they observe it saying, “this has been the custom and we have to follow to please the
god” is the final statement. In this practice, it is very evident that there is conditional
preference, empirical expectation and normative expectations. Thus this is a social norm and
it is a harmful practice for menstruating girls and women at large extent.
There is also an argument that “Procedural Justice” or legal government injunction might
influence people’s judgement and their behavior. One example from legal requirement for
rural migrant enterpreneurs’ disobedience to the business license in China illustrates that
sometimes, it does more harm than good. Similar case on female genital mutilation also has
demonstrated that if the law is in one country, families tend to go to bordering county to
follow the social norm anyway. Thus, I agree with Biccheiri and Mercier, when they
mentioned that “. . . a government diktat would work for conventions, but be more
problematic in case of social norms” (p. 5). However, there is definitely a role of legal
directives and cannot be undermined, especially where local government and authorities are
part of a community.
The curse of Chhaupadi is not limited to the menstruating girls and women; it extends to the
male partners, too. Thus, the range of its influence also links with male. As there are many
factual beliefs linked with male resulting in serious consequences, they are also afraid to take
this risk. Eventually, they are also supporting the social practice to this date, regardless of
their economic and educational status. Here an example from TOSTAN is very helpful to
learn that male members have to be brought in the circle of community that we talk about.
Nevertheless, male and female may be together sometimes and sometimes may need different
interventions.
In South Asia, besides gender issues, communities need to be classified in terms of education,
economic status, geographical location, religion and language. However, overall any
community needs to be seen in terms “mainstream elites” versus “marginalized” groups who
may be women, lower strata ethnic groups or people with differently ability. Social norms to
these groups may be different depending on the issues and location of the community.
Biccheiri in the article “The Rules We Live By” argues that the definition of social norm
needs to be taken as “rational reconstruction of what a social norm is, not a faithful
descriptive account of the real beliefs and preferences people have or of the way in which
they in fact deliberate.” She further states that “such reconstruction, however, will have to be
reliable in that it must be possible to extract meaningful, testable predictions from it”
(Biccheiri, 2006). In the same article, she explains two models of reaching a decision to
change the personal belief and eventually to reach the community as a whole – 1) traditional
rational model and 2) prescritive model. The first model starts with the systematic assessing
the situation, gather information, list and evaluate the consequences and then calculate the
expected utility of the alternative courses of action.
Critical Evaluation of the Work So Far
Many people are raising their voices in Nepal to abolish the Chhaupadi practices; some
NGOs are also trying to advocate and raise awareness on the issue, however they are not
“organized diffusion”. They are more sporadic and have not been able to reach the hardcore
marginalized communities.
A very few studies have been done on Chhaupadi, so empirical data does not exist, except
occasional media reporting when serious accidents happen in Chhaupadi.
Recently, a case has been filed in the Supreme Court of Nepal to eliminate these cruelties
forever. The Supreme Court has ordered the government to declare the practice as evil and
given it one month to begin stamping the practice out. However, Pushpa Bhusal, a leading
lawyer, said it was a positive move in removing the traditional discrimination against women
. . .but also warned that a change in the law alone would not be enough, people needed to be
educated against such a scourge of society.
The education ministry is hoping to establish a new annual literacy plan in the region;
including three days of health education classes dedicated exclusively to reproductive health
and menstruation hygiene.
These interventions lack community consultation, deliberations and argumentation, they are
rather outsiders imposition by development workers, such as NGOs. In many rural areas
development NGOs are labelled as “dollar farming organizations”; thus the trust level is very
low, although they are very crucial for any kind of change in the communities. This is
especially true in a county, like Nepal where political stability is a problem and the local
government is very weak.
On the positive side, many network groups exist in the community level to start with –
women groups, School Management Committees, Parent Teacher Association, child clubs
and youth clubs. These are all community based. However, representation in the network
group is still a problem, as there is an elite capture in every network group. When the
networking groups are heavily dominated by the high cast groups and other elites, the
marginalize groups tend to be either very submissive or not participate at all. Therefore, a
special measure needs to be taken for their meaningful participation in the group.
Intervention Goal
Social norm on menstruating girls changed from discriminatory practice of Chhaupadi to a
social norm against harmful aspects of Chhaupadi. In addition, the interventions should be
developing common knowledge on menstrual cycle as natural biological phenomena.
Proposed Intervention Strategy
Proposed major activity in this paper is to deconstruct the existing social norm and to
introduce a new norm. For this purpose, Biccheiri and Mercier suggest that the individual or
community need the assurance that they will not suffer the negative consequences.
According to Biccheiri’s traditional rational model, along with situation analysis, assurance
and conscious commitment is very important. She has argued well that deliberations,
argument and common knowledge can change the social beliefs (Biccheiri & Mercier, no
date). This demands focus on bottom up approach and community will be the central point
and will be the main actor while outsiders will be facilitators.
Based on this argument, the present intervention strategy will build upon major elements: 1)
Deliberation, 2) Argumentations and 3) Common Knowledge within the community by the
community and for the community.
Recommended intervention strategies are as follows:
1. Identify the team of leaders from the settlements who will be engaged in site visits
where the Chhaupadi is not observed anymore. The leaders should be the ones who
are not only political leaders but those who are trusted by the community and respect
them as role models and they must be from different strata of society;
2. Ensure the participation from marginalized communities, specifically to bring
proportionate representation from women, dalit, and people with differently able.
3. Ensure the participation of young girls (19-24 years) in the whole process.
4. Engage them in interaction with those families, who are not practicing it anymore, let
them ask questions and engage them in argumentation;
5. Map out the households where the
Chhauapadi shed is still there and
mark the households which do not
have the shed attached. Similar
activity has been done with the
communities in 2006 to identify the
household where the children has
not registered in the school. Please
see the example of the map in the
box:
6. Empower the individuals and
community with knowledge on
menstrual hygiene;
7. Let the leaders facilitate the process
to develop an action plan to come
Miss out 4-11 days of school every month
44.2% of adolescent girls currently aged 15-19
dropped out from secondary school. 21.3%
have never been in school
School Mapping- identifying the children out of school
up with a new social norm and to monitor the practice in participatory way. They also
will decide on Image Incentive and corrective measures in terms of violation of social
norm.
8. Community members signing on the new social norm as a collective behavior and
making it public.
9. Establish a “Watch Group” to monitor the community adhered to their new social
norms.
10. Terms of Reference will be developed for Watch Group by the larger group;
11. Watch Group will monitor the practice and Image incentive will be provided to those
who are adhering the social norms.
12. Watch Group will council the household where the practice is still on.
13. Engage child club members to publicize in their newsletter and encourage their peers
to go to school during menstrual period.
As a result of these interventions, a new social norm will be introduced which will be as
follows:
Girls are not secluded into an unsafe shed during their menstruating period and treated
normal with regular food and attending school regularly. Those households, where
these girls are still secluded and treated differently will be hold accountable as a
violation of social norm.
This will foster the conditional preference among the community members to abandon the
practice on the condition that others do so. Persons will want to achieve the Image incentive
and to avoid the counseling activity.
The community will provide safe place to live and provide regular food for girls during their
menstruating period.
Community will be convinced that all members in their community think that they should
treat their girls normal during the mensuration period and send them to the school regularly.
Conclusion
Among other gender based discriminations, Chhaupadi is one of the social practices which
violates the CRC (Child Rights Convention) and compels menstruating girls to spend 4-7
nights outside home in an unsafe shed. Conditional preference of the community members is
the fear of direct and indirect social sanction if they do not practice the custom. They believe
that all the community members think that every girl/woman who is menstruating should
follow this to make community healthy and safe, if not god will punish not only to the
disobeying girl/woman but also to the whole community. Their empirical expectation is that
all menstruating girl observe the rule and do not mingle around with others.
This is a strong, chronic and very harmful practice for the girls. At one hand, they are facing
the vulnerable situation every month and the other they are also loosing their opportunity to
regular school education. Long term psychological effect of this practice is that birth of a
female child is a curse. Therefore, a new social norm has to be introduced against the
existing practice. However, it may backfire, if an outsider tries to intervene. It has to be
from within the same community, new intervention strategies need to develop to introduce a
new norm in the society. This is possible when there is open deliberations, argumentations
and common knowledge within the community. When a trendsetter is born among the group,
inconsistency will be obvious. This will facilitate more argumentations and deliberations.
Gradually, inconsistency in factual belief will inspire the early adopters to follow the
trendsetter, who will pull early majority and eventually the other late majority and laggards.
References
Biccheiri, Christina. 2006. “The Rules We Live By” in The Grammar of Society: The nature
and Dynamics of Social Norms. Cmbridge University Press.
Biccheiri, Christina. 2006. “Habits of the mind” in The Grammar of Society: The nature and
Dynamics of Social Norms. Cmbridge University Press.
Biccheiri, C. and H. Mercier. No Date. “Norms and Beliefs: How Change Occurs” in The
Dynamic View of Norms. Cmbridge University Press.
Kandel, N., A.Rajbhandari and J. Lamichanne. "Chhue, Chhaupadi and Chueekula Pratha" –
Menstrual Sheds: Examples of Discriminatory Practices against Women in the Mid- and
Far-Western Regions of Nepal: Considering Women as "Impure” or “Unclean" During
Menstruation and Post-Partum Periods.
Prepared by
Sumon Kamal Tuladhar, Ed.D
Education Specialist
UNICEF Nepal Country Office
July 14, 2012