Amanatullah Ismail writes
When Salama started menstruating, she enjoyed using the sanitary pad given to her by an organistion who had visited their school for a menstrual sensitisation. Unfortunately, after the pack given to her finished, her parents then introduced the usage of rag.
“I was introduced to rags as my parents couldn’t afford pads for me and my sisters,” Salama said. “This almost caused me an embarrassment in school.”
She remembered a day when the rag she was using was about to fall off between her legs where she had stiffled it. To avoid the upcoming embarrassment, she ran into a nearby bush, a place where they use for toilet in their school to put the rag back to its place.
“Throughout that day,” she reminisced. “I sat on my seat unmoved. I couldn’t even play with my friends.”
In our world, especially third world countries, many girls find it hard to afford menstrual products. Even, in protest, period activists often say, “why are condoms free and pads sold, sex is a choice and periods are not.”
Period poverty, as the term implies, does not only mean having no sanitary products or no access to it, it also extends to limited access which leads to prolonged use of the same tampons or pads that resulted in infection.
In an interview with the founder of Gold Heart Foundation, GHF(a social welfare organization aimed to empower underprivileged children by enriching their lives through education and rehabilitation) Moyinoluwa Ogundowole defined the term as the inaccessibility of menstrual hygiene education and inaccessibility to water.”
Adding that,”It is a global phenomenon which requires a grassroot intervention.”
Unfortunately, she lamented that there is currently no curriculum in schools which teaches children on menstrual health and hygiene.
It is correct to say period poverty is an extension of poverty, especially in a country like Nigeria where more than half of its population are destitutes. A 2020 study by UNICEF and the World Health Organization found that significant proportions of women in many developing countries are still struggling to manage their period, lacking access to menstrual products, water and private places to change.
Women are in their period for 5 days (on average) and use about 3 pads a day. A packet of 10 sanitary pads cost between N400 – N2,000 and women might need more than a packet for a month depending on the menstrual flow. Girls will spend up to 55,000 on pads for 6years and 9,600 a year, N800 a month — if there’s no inflation.
Unfortunately, with more than 83 million Nigerians living below the poverty line, menstrual products are like luxury many can only dream about. How do we expect someone who hasn’t put food in her stomach to think about sanitary pad?
President Muhammadu Buhari signed a 7.5 per cent value added tax-free policy on locally made sanitary pads in Nigeria but not much has been achieved. It is not interesting that majority of the pads in the market are imported as finished goods, and are subjected to import levies. This drove us back to square one — sanitary pads still unaffordable.
“Prices of sanitary pads should be reduced or even be given for free so it could be affordable and accessible,” the founder of GHS, Moyinoluwa Ogundowole recommended.
“There should also be provision of quality menstrual hygiene education through campaign awareness, association to schools, media advocacy and distribution of disposable and ultra modern pad,”she added.
In my conversation with Surayya, who almost give a man his demand just to get money to buy pad, I realised how grave period poverty can become.
Surayya, a tertiary institution student, only used a sanitary pad in school. But at home, she used what her sisters and parents use — rags.
She knows using rags in place of sanitary pads is unhygienic, but in their house they have no option. They are poor. In fact, in school, she uses pads by denying herself some other luxuries.
“The reason I even get to use pads in school is because I can’t afford to live with the shame of using rags while other students use pads,” she said.
“This issue of pads almost made me follow a wrong path because I was going to emulate a friend of mine who gets her pads from a guy in exchange for him to do stuffs to her.”
Surayya is one of the 500 million people estimated by Advocacy Group Global Citizen to be living without adequate menstrual hygiene. In fact, a 2018 survey funded by Always Maxi pads, reveals that 1 in 5 students are at some point either left school early or missed school due to period poverty.
Poor menstrual hygiene leads to urinary tract infections or infections that affect the reproductive tract. This means that the need for menstrual education for girls and help on unaffordability of sanitary products is quintessential, as recommended by the founder of GHS.
“Perhaps, I hope someone somewhere can do something,” Surayya sobs.