Recently, I read a story about a young woman in rural Nepal who burned to death because she was having her period.
Partabi Bogati was following the ancient Hindu practice of chhaupadi (from a word that means “impurity”), which sees menstruating women as bearers of disease, disaster and bad luck; they are barred from handling food, using public water sources, or sleeping under the same roof as their families. Bogati was spending the night in one of the small mud or wooden huts, some no bigger than a closet or a foxhole. She died trying to stay warm.