KATHMANDU, March 4: Experts have emphasized that menstruation is a public health and gender discrimination issue, challenging society's view of it as a personal matter. At an extensive discussion program in the capital on Monday, they highlighted the severe impact of social discrimination against menstruation on women's health.
Senior gynecologist Dr Swaraj Rajbhandari, addressing the event, stressed that treating menstruation as a private issue and upholding social discrimination harms women's physical, mental, and social health.
Poor menstrual hygiene causes various diseases in many women, Dr Rajbhandari said
She added that 43 percent of women in the menstruating age group suffer from health issues such as excessive vaginal discharge, lower abdominal pain, urinary tract infections, cervical cancer, and infertility.
Among them, 22 percent are unmarried, 27 percent are above 40 years old, and 69 percent fall between 20 and 39 years old.
Dr Rajbhandari explained that the lack of clean water, the absence of quality pads, insufficient clean water and soap in schools, the unavailability of pads, and the lack of menstruation-friendly facilities lead to inadequate hygiene during menstruation. “Using dirty water to clean internal organs, not changing pads on time, and having dirty hands cause infections and various diseases,” she said.
She informed that a 2021 statistic showed that 20 percent of adolescent girls in rural areas lack access to sanitary pads.
Kabita Aryal, head of the Gender Violence Management and Senior Citizens Care Section at the Department of Health Services, highlighted that the lack of toilets, bins for disposing pads, and the shortage of bins, soap, clean water, and quality pads in schools negatively impact women's health and the environment.
These shortages and discriminations during menstruation reduce self-esteem among adolescent girls and women, force them into unsafe conditions, isolate them, deprive them of economic opportunities, and deny them their rights to health and education, she said.
Aryal explained that discrimination during menstruation and the lack of proper hygiene management cause female students to miss two to three days of school each month.
Dr Rajbhandari further added that social taboos, which restrict women from eating certain nutritious foods during menstruation, lead to nutritional deficiencies in women's bodies.
According to her, women face severe consequences during menstruation, including fire accidents in the sheds where they are confined, pneumonia from the cold, death from animal bites, and sexual violence in menstrual huts.
She also explained that societal superstitions, such as prohibiting women from touching certain things, visiting temples, or touching plants during menstruation, and the belief that these actions would make them impure, cause women to experience stress during this period.
Participants in the program pointed out that many women in the far west region have lost their lives due to discrimination during menstruation, making menstruation not just a personal matter but an issue of gender violence and human rights violations.
Although discussions on menstrual discrimination have taken place in Nepal for two decades, the practice continues to this day. They emphasized that as long as this practice persists, it will affect women's freedom, self-esteem, and health, and therefore, it should be viewed as a public health-related social issue.
Murari Prasad Kharel, a member of the National Human Rights Commission, stated that despite the laws being enacted seven years ago to address the practice of ‘chhaupadi’ related to menstruation, no complaints have been filed against it. "No one has filed a single complaint regarding menstrual discrimination so far," he said. He expressed surprise that, even after seven years, no complaints had been submitted. Nepal's National Penal Code (Criminal Code 2017) classifies the 'chhaupadi' tradition as a criminal offence.
The Criminal Code mandates a sentence of three months in prison or a fine of three thousand rupees for forcing someone to stay in a 'chaupadi' or keeping someone in a 'chhaupadi’.However, he pointed out that no complaints or actions have been taken despite the law's enactment. Kharel emphasized that enacting the law alone has not brought about change, and more programs, including policy changes, are necessary. Dr Rajbhandari stated that although policies, rules, and laws addressing discrimination in this area have been created over time, implementation still poses a challenge.