Nepal took a historic step by explicitly criminalizing the centuries-old practice of Chhaupadi in 2017 through the Muluki Criminal Code 2074. This landmark victory for justice and women's rights came almost a decade after the Supreme Court declared the practice a human rights violation in May 2005, outlawed it, and directed the government to legislate for its elimination. The law against this deadly custom that banishes menstruating women and girls to isolated sheds called chhaugoth, branding them as impure, came into full effect in August 2018, establishing penalties of three months' imprisonment, a fine of three thousand rupees, or both. Yet despite this legal milestone, women and children continue to die in these makeshift structures that are, by law, condemned.
This July, twenty-eight-year-old Kamala Aauji Damai died from a snakebite while staying in the menstrual shed in Kanchanpur. A month later in Achham, a stone fell from a cliff onto a chhaugoth, killing thirty-five-year-old Nim Khanal and seven-year-old Kabita instantly. Three deaths in 2025 alone underscore a fundamental truth about Nepal's approach to gender-based violence: the state has achieved symbolic legislation but failed utterly to deliver actual justice and protection to women and girls. Before that, in August 2023, sixteen-year-old Anita Chand died from a snakebite in Baitadi.
The deaths reported post the 2018 criminalization are the most powerful evidence of the law's ineffectiveness. In January 2019, just five months after the enforcement began, Amba Bohara and her sons Ramit and Suresh suffocated from smoke in a Bajura chhaugoth. Weeks later, twenty-one-year-old Parbati Bogati met the same fate in Doti. The same year in December, twenty-one-year-old Parbati Buda Rawat died under similar circumstances in Achham. While her death sparked one of the first arrests under the new law, the legal action itself exposed the profound weakness of the criminal code. The disproportionately weak penalty of three thousand rupees (approx. USD 20) or three months' jail conveys judicial apathy and lack of seriousness about a crime that kills. This meagre punishment allows communities to treat Chhaupadi as a minor offense rather than the serious, life-threatening violation of human rights that it is.
The chhaugoth is typically a small, poorly ventilated space made of mud or rock. It is not merely an inconvenience but a site of compounded violence. Women and girls face exposure to harsh weather conditions, snake and animal bites, and respiratory harm from poor ventilation, any of which can be—and repeatedly have been—fatal. The isolation facilitates sexual assault and rape. The stigma breeds depression, guilt, malnutrition from food restrictions, and school dropouts. Yet the legal system treats it as a minor infraction.
Furthermore, impunity is rife due to deeply ingrained social dynamics. This was starkly exposed in June 2024 in Achham when a teenage girl was raped outside her chhaugoth. Initial reports suggest that villagers attempted to cover up the assault, claiming she had simply fainted. The community's immediate instinct was to preserve its honor and tradition, protecting the perpetrator and the custom over the victim. Police and officials frequently treat Chhaupadi as a ‘cultural matter’, allowing elders and families to evade legal accountability in the name of tradition.
The enforcement record reveals systematic failure at multiple levels. Police officers explain they are unable to take action without complaints, creating a perfect circle of inaction where victims cannot report and authorities will not investigate proactively. Meanwhile, demolition campaigns have created a cycle of destruction and reconstruction. This persistent contradiction between legal reform and lived reality demonstrates the lack of enforcement, deterrence, or transformative change.
Even before criminalization, a 2017 UN Women analysis warned that authorities cannot monitor every remote household especially when women internalize impurity beliefs. It stressed community engagement and sustained programs alongside legislation. By 2025, these prophetic concerns stand validated. The nominal penalties prove inadequate, comprehensive approaches absent. Nepal has failed to create both meaningful penalties and effective enforcement mechanisms; the failure is comprehensive.
In February 2025, seventeen years after the Supreme Court's directive and seven years after criminalization, the international community's attention returned to this issue during Nepal's CEDAW review in Geneva. The Committee experts raised concerns about Chhaupadi's persistence despite the law and noted ongoing animal attack deaths. The fact that this question was raised at an international forum seven years after the law took effect shows that Nepal's failure to protect women has not gone unnoticed globally. The National Human Rights Commission decried the persistence of harmful practices and urged stronger action. Within five months of this international dialogue, three more lives were lost.
Most fundamentally, Nepal must strengthen legal punishment so it outweighs the psychological terror of defying Chhaupadi. Women who reject the practice face immediate social exile, family shame, and accusations of bringing divine misfortune upon their households. These threats feel immediate and certain while the possibility of state protection feels distant and unreliable until harsh penalties make it a credible, immediate deterrent.
Legal penalties must reflect the gravity of the offense. When a woman or girl dies in a chhaugoth, those responsible should face charges of culpable homicide or manslaughter. Courts must set precedents that make clear the cost of valuing tradition over human life. Accountability must extend beyond individual family members to police and local authorities who treat Chhaupadi as a cultural issue rather than a crime. The state must establish systematic reporting mechanisms, invest in survivor protection programs, and create pathways for women to report violence without facing community retaliation.
The pattern of deaths reveals another critical dimension. Most reported cases occur in winter, when women light fires for warmth in poorly ventilated sheds, or during the monsoon, when flooding and landslides make these structures particularly dangerous. Chhaupadi may persist year round, but extreme weather exposes a practice that otherwise remains hidden. These predictable seasonal risks demand targeted monitoring. Authorities must establish proactive inspection protocols during winter and monsoon periods, when vulnerability is highest and deaths most likely to be detected and prevented.
The framework for comprehensive action was outlined seven years ago. Nepal knows what must be done. It is crucial to treat Chhaupadi as the gender-based violence it fundamentally is, shift enforcement from reactive to proactive, and transform that framework into sustained action rather than sporadic campaigns so that the next tragedy can be prevented.
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