A 21-year-old woman has died of suffocation while observing a century’s-old Hindu tradition that banishes menstruating women in Nepal’s remote far-western region, police said on Monday. “It appears she died of suffocation after the fire. “The victim lived with her mother-in-law since her husband worked as migrant worker in Malaysia,’’ the police officer said. It forces women to cowsheds or outhouses, and forbids them from touching other people, cattle, vegetables or fruit. The government criminalised the practice in August 2017, however it persists among patriarchal Hindu families that deem menstruating women as impure.

Source: Punch February 04, 2019 09:45 UTC