On the occasion of the festival, local women of some five Village Development Committees in the district on Sunday organized various cultural programs to discourage the Chhaupadi system, a system widely practiced in the far-western region where menstruating women are banished from their houses and left alone to live in sheds in secluded areas away from human settlement. [break]
Women of Kudari, Tatopani, Haku, Labhra and Talium VDCs took the festival to raise awareness against the social ill.
The organizers maintained that as their attempts to raise general awareness against Chhaupadi by means of formal interactions did not yield the desired result, they decided to raise public awareness through folk music and songs.
Jay Laxmi Neupane, a local of Labhra VDC, believes that the cultural program will be instrumental in educating illiterate citizens in the district to abolish the wrong practice which have already claimed several lives in the district in the past.
A Chhaupadi abolishing committee formed in the district on Sunday organized a competition at Labhra on the occasion of the Teej festival under the aegis of CAD-Nepal, a non-government organization, to discourage Chhaupadi in the district as well as to elevate the status of women.
Hundreds of women from the five VDCs partook in the program with a slogan ´Let us break the web of superstition and abolish Chhaupadi from our society´.
"Earlier, we used to assemble and celebrate the Teej festival singing songs related to love and religion. But this year, we sang songs that call for the abolishment of the social ill. We are very happy to be a part of the noble cause," said a woman who had arrived from Talium village to take part in the completion.
In the competition, women from each of the five VDCs were supposed to sing a best song related against Chhaupadi. A group from Haku VDC stood first whereas groups from Tatopani and Labhra bagged second and third prizes.
Many locals who were earlier adhered to the idea of Chhaupadi had also showed their presence in the program.
Lately, various organizations in the district have been organizing programs to discourage the practice as dozens of women die annually due to snakebite, hypothermia and sever bleeding while observing Chhaupadi.
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