Chhaupadi

Chhaupadi (Nepali: छाउपडी  Listen ) is a social tradition related to "menstrual taboo" in the western part of Nepal for Hindu women, which prohibits them from participating in normal family activities during a menstruation period, as they are considered "impure". The women are kept out of the house and have to live in a cattle shed or a makeshift hut. This period of time lasts between ten and eleven days when an adolescent girl has her first period; thereafter, the duration is between four and seven days each month. Childbirth also results in a ten to eleven-day confinement.

During this time, women are forbidden to touch men or even to enter the courtyard of their own homes. They are barred from consuming milk, yogurt, butter, meat, and other nutritious foods, for fear they will forever mar those goods. The women must survive on a diet of dry foods, salt, and rice. They cannot use warm blankets and are allowed only a small rug; most commonly, this is made of jute (also known as burlap). They are also restricted from going to school or performing their daily functions like taking a bath and forced to stay in the conditions of the shed.

Women have died while performing the practice, including two young women in late 2016 who died from smoke inhalation and "carbon monoxide poisoning" from lighting fires to heat secluded makeshift shelters, huts and sheds during cold wearher, this was a common cause of death in poorly ventilated huts. Rape, snakebites and wild animal attacks were other common causes of death of banished women practising Chhaupadi.

...
Wikipedia