Date of Award

Spring 5-18-2026

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Public Policy (MPP)

First Advisor

Alice Miller

Second Advisor

Graeme Reid

Third Advisor

David Simon

Subject Area(s)

Asian studies, Behavioral sciences, Cultural anthropology, Environmental health, Ethics, Ethnic studies, Gender studies, Health education, Individual and family studies, Law, Management, Public health, Public policy, Social research, Women's studies, Statistics

Abstract

This thesis examines how two decades of efforts to abolish chhaupadi have shaped the everyday conditions under which women and girls experience menstruation in western Nepal. Chhaupadi, commonly understood as menstrual seclusion, has been addressed through Supreme Court directives, national policy, criminal law, municipal implementation instruments, hut demolition campaigns, public health programming, and rights-based advocacy. Yet the practice has persisted, adapted, and in some cases moved into less visible spaces. Rather than treating this as a simple gap between law and practice, this thesis asks how abolition efforts themselves have become part of the regulatory regime through which menstruation is governed. The study uses a qualitative multi-level case study design, drawing on a targeted interdisciplinary literature review, documentary analysis of legal, policy, implementation, human rights, and media materials from 2005 to 2026, and semi-structured key informant interviews with actors working across government, civil society, media, health, development, and local implementation spaces. The analysis is guided by an adapted ecosocial framework based on Nancy Krieger’s concepts of embodiment, pathways of embodiment, cumulative interplay, and accountability and agency.

The thesis argues that abolition efforts have produced a governance regime that is highly visible in public but thin at the level where menstrual restriction is most often enforced: the household. Legal and policy instruments have expanded prohibition, monitoring, reporting, and demolition, but they have not consistently transformed the kinship, ritual, and social authority structures that regulate women’s bodies during menstruation. As a result, reform has often changed the form and visibility of chhaupadi without fully expanding women’s autonomy. The thesis concludes that meaningful change requires moving beyond abolition as removal. Interventions must ask whether women have greater freedom to sleep, eat, move, worship, seek care, and make decisions without coercion. This does not mean dismissing every menstrual practice as oppression; it means distinguishing between practices that are chosen, supported, and meaningful, and those sustained through fear, compulsion, or social sanction. A more effective response requires household-level implementation, accessible grievance and remedy mechanisms, locally grounded intervention design, and indicators that measure autonomy and safety rather than only the disappearance of huts.

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