Fight against the stigma around menstruation must intensify

Majority of the female population in India is of the reproductive age and most of them menstruate every month. Culturally, in India, menstruation is considered dirty and impure and during monthly cycles girls and women are discouraged from attending religious functions. Stigma around menstruation and menstrual hygiene is a violation of human rights, most importantly the right to human dignity. A fight against such issues will preserve a woman’s right to non-discrimination, equality, bodily integrity, health, privacy and right to freedom from inhumane and degrading treatment. The choice of sanitary protection is a personal decision hemmed in by societal pressures. It is often influenced by a woman’s environment and its availability and affordable options.

Study shows 70% of Indian women cannot afford sanitary napkins and 23% of Indian girls drop out of school because of menstruation-related problems. Over two-thirds girls studying in standard 8 and 9 often skip schools during their menstrual cycles. Recently, the National Commission for Women (NCW) had recommended installation of sanitary napkins vending machines in each school and college, in order to safeguard a girl’s right to good health and preserving her self-esteem.

Following recommendations by the NCW, the State Higher and Technical Education Department on November 20, 2014, and the Directorate of Technical Education on December 5, 2014, have issued directives to all aided and unaided technical and professional educational institutions to install sanitary napkins vending machines in their premises. But still, there is no respite for girls. Regrettably, a majority of institutions have failed to install vending machines in their campuses.  

Understanding the severity of the issue, an initiative has been undertaken by Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) to promote the role of menstrual management as a trigger for better and stronger development of women and girls — personal, educational and professional. To address the root cause of the problem, MNS has repeatedly followed up the issue at various levels. However, the respective departments in the government have been callous and unresponsive.

Meanwhile, under the Indian government’s Promotion of Menstrual Hygiene scheme, girls residing in 8 rural districts of Maharashtra were to receive free sanitary napkins as part of the project sanctioned in 2012-13. But according to the CAG report, the government did not undertake enough efforts to implement this project. As per the information shared by the Health department of Uttar Pradesh, about 28 lakh girls do not attend classes during their monthly cycles and around 19 lakhs drop out of schools following difficulty to manage menstruation. To curb these disruptions, girls from grade 6th to grade 12th are given free sanitary napkins as per the plan for teenage education in this region. Similar health programmes have been implemented in Rajasthan and Bihar, under the teenage health programme. 

Every girl in the country should be entitled to exercise her right to education. India will not be a clean country in the true sense unless we resolve issues related to health and sanitation. An effective way to make cost-effective napkins available for girls in educational institutions is through women’s self-help groups. These self-help groups would not only manufacture and provide cost-effective sanitary napkins to poor girls but also create employment opportunities for women across the state.

Campaigns such as ‘Happy to Bleed’, conducted through social media, act as a vehicle of change and make girls aware of their rights. Although, personal cleanliness and maintaining menstrual hygiene is the fundamental right of every woman in the country, it is not constitutionally recognised as such. However, there’s an urgent need to provide the legal base and efforts for its implementation.

The author is general secretary of MNS