A Controversial Solution To Menstrual Exile: Building Better Menstrual Huts
There's long been opposition to the practice of forcing a woman on her period to menstrual exile to huts, which can be unsafe and unsanitary. One charity has a new interim response: Upgrade the huts.
When Chetana Madavi, 29, gets her period, she gathers a few clothes and makes her way to a kurma ghar — or menstruation hut — a few blocks from her home in a tribal community in the western Indian state of Maharashtra. It's a mud shack with a broken door and no toilet. When it rains, water leaks through the mud-tiled roof.
Phoolawanti Gangu Kova, 44, who lives in the same state (but in a different village), also heads to a menstrual hut when she is on her period — but it's a very different kind of hut. It has a fan, beds, mattresses, running water, a medical kit and an indoor toilet. There's a proper door and lock. She says it "feels like home." The exterior is made of bottle-bricks, a sustainable
