A Nepali woman and her two children have been found dead in subzero temperatures inside a so-called “menstrual hut”.
The bodies of Amba Bohara, 35, and her sons, aged 12 and nine, were found by her father-in-law in the western Bajura district yesterday morning. Night-time temperatures in the region are currently around -14C.
“She had lit a fire inside the shed to keep warm and it appears the blanket had caught fire while they were asleep, filling the room with smoke,” said Bajura senior police officer Uddhab Singh Bhatt.
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The stone and mud hut had “neither had windows nor ventilation”, says The Week India.
In traditional Nepalese culture, menstruating women and girls are considered unclean “forbidden from touching other people, food that may be consumed by others, cattle and even books”, CNN reports.
Historically, women have been segregated from the rest of the family in a separate building during their periods.
However, these menstrual huts are often extremely basic - Reuters says the dead woman and her sons had reportedly been confined to a “windowless shed” - and dangerous in extreme weather.
The practice has resulted in several high-profile deaths in recent years. The deaths of Bohara and her sons came almost a year to the day since a 21-year-old woman died in similar circumstances.
Amid growing pressure from humanitarian and women’s rights groups, the Nepali government outlawed menstrual huts in 2005.
However, despite toughening the laws in 2017 to make the practice criminal offence, officials admit that change has been slow to permeate the country’s remote western region.
“It is taking time because it needs the society and families to change their thinking,” said Rudra Devi Sharma, from Nepal’s women and child welfare ministry, adding that the government had implemented awareness programmes “to root out the practice”.
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