Washington Post: They banished their 15-year-old for having her period. She died in a cold Nepali hut.
“A 15-year-old Nepali girl died over the weekend in a hut to which she had been banished for menstruating — the latest victim of an ancient ritual that persists in parts of south Asia. … Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal called for an end to the custom known as Chaupadi a month earlier, after a 21-year-old woman in a nearby village died the same way. But with centuries-old roots in Hinduism, Chaupadi has survived in some regions despite bans, a U.N. alert, and the deaths of many women. Nepal outlawed it in 2005, yet a 2011 bulletin from the United Nations said that nearly every woman in Roshani’s district of Achaam still lived under the practice…” (Selk, 12/20).