Here's the atrocious way some villages in the Himalayas treat girls who are menstruating

Every month 14-year-old Uttara Saud leaves her family's home deep in the hills of the Himalayas to sleep by herself in a shed without windows or a door.

Here in the remote villages of Nepal, many believe that women who are menstruating are impure and bring bad luck.

A centuries-old tradition, called chaupadi, banishes them during their period, leaving them vulnerable to animal attacks, freezing temperatures, and other, more horrifying threats.

In February 2014, Reuters photographer Navesh Chitrakar visited Legudsen, a remote village in far western Nepal, to document the dangers of this practice.