14-year-old girl dies in Cyclone Gaja after she was made to sleep outside the house because she was on her period
A family in Tamil Nadu, India, is now grieving after a 14-year-old girl died during the devastating cyclone Gaja afflicting the state because she was forced to sleep outside the home on grounds of an archaic tradition. The teenager, identified as S. Vijayalakshmi, had been made to sleep in a hut outside her house because of an age-old practice that dictates menstruating women are "impure" and are to be made to sleep separate from their family.
According to the Daily Mail, the incident occurred on November 16 near the village of Anaikudi, located in the Radhapuram Block of Tirunelveli District in Tamil Nadu. The girl had been sleeping in the hut when the cyclone made landfall, resulting in a coconut tree falling on the structure and trapping her underneath the rubble.