PROBLEM STATEMENT
Female
students face great challenges in terms of hygiene and sanitation. For girls
who are menstruating, these problems compound the difficulties posed by the
inability to afford sanitary towels as well as cultural taboos around menstruation.
Moreover, the taboos and stigmas attached to menstruation lead to an overall
culture of silence around the topic, resulting in limited information on
menstruation and menstrual hygiene. Such misinformation can have ramifications
on the health and dignity of girls and women. A growing body of evidence
shows that girls’ inability to manage their menstrual hygiene in schools,
results in school absenteeism, which in turn, has severe economic costs on
their lives and on the country. As a result, many girls miss on
average four days of school every month which is over a month in a year,
meaning they fall behind in class and sometimes even drop out of school
altogether. This is an added challenge to the already existing problems that
lead to the high dropout rate of female students in secondary schools.
The
main problems faced by women and girls are:-
- The expense of commercial sanitary pads;
- Absenteeism where girls stay at home rather than attending school when menstruating;
- Unhygienic ways to dry menstrual materials;
- Inadequate waste disposal facilities;
- Lack of privacy for changing menstrual materials;
- Leakage from poor-quality protection materials;
- The lack of resources for washing such as soap;
- Limited education about the facts of menstruation;
- Limited access to counselling and guidance;
- Fear caused by cultural myths;
- Embarrassment and low self esteem;
- And the unsupportive attitudes of some men.
