The government has tried to intervene, but the centuries-old custom of "chhaupadi" has been difficult to eliminate owing to deep-rooted fears and taboos.
In Nepal, only 57% of women can read and write. Among them is Parwati Sunar, who left school early and had her first child at the age of 16. Today, she's trying to make up for lost time in the same school as her son.
A Nepali mother of two, Parwati Sunar finds herself attending the same school as her son after returning to an education system she fled at the age of 15, when she eloped with a man seven years her senior.
Parwati Sunar, a Nepali mother of two, has returned to the educational system she left when she eloped with a guy seven years her senior at the age of 15, and now she attends the same school as her son.
"I enjoy learning and am proud to attend with classmates who are like my own children," Sunar told Reuters from her village of Punarbas on the southwestern edge of the Himalayan nation, where she studies in seventh grade.