Tribal Women Pay A Heavy Price For Misusing Contraceptive Pills

Tribal women pay a heavy price for misusing contraceptive pills to by pass an age-old custom.

- Cithara Paul

Laila was in the first day of her menstrual period. And she was in no mood to meet an outsider. Sitting alone in the tiny hut where one could barely squeeze in, she looked desolate. There was an eerie silence inside the hut and it had a strange smell. Laila had to spend a few more days in the hut, located at the edge of the forest, before she could return home. And she was waiting....

Laila, 18, belongs to the Muthuvan tribe and lives in the Edamalakudy tribal panchayat, a cluster of 26 hamlets, near Munnar in Idukki district of Kerala. It is the state's first and only tribal panchayat, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi once mentioned it in his monthly radio programme Mann Ki Baat. Modi described it as a “remote tribal village where people hardly go’’. “One has to travel through forest for a full day to reach there,’’ he said.

Laila lives in one such hamlet, totally cut off from the rest of the world. Unlike other adivasi communities, the Muthuvans have limited their interaction with the outside world to preserve their culture and traditions. Among the Muthuvans, menstruating women are considered to be impure and supposed to bring bad luck to their menfolk. So they are made to stay in a specially designated place called valaymapura, a tiny hut on the outskirts of the village, during those days. “Men are not supposed to see me. Something bad will happen to my husband or father if I violate the custom,’’ says Laila, who has been religiously following the custom ever since she attained puberty. “What can we do? These are age-old traditions we have to follow.”

According to Natarajan, a traditional healer, the system of valaymapura was introduced to give women complete rest. “The idea of purity was imposed so that they followed the custom,” he says. “But the condition of the valaymapura must be improved.”