Prioritise menstrual hygiene
Sanitary towels. It is estimated that 65 percent of women and girls in Kenya cannot afford sanitary pads.
There is a Bill headed to Parliament about making male circumcision free and compulsory so that boys can access the service with ease. I don’t have a problem with that; it’s actually good for hygiene and all that.
But it got me thinking: What about the Basic Education Amendment Act (2016) , which places the responsibility of providing free, sufficient and quality sanitary towels on the government to reduce the number of girls missing school during their menstrual cycle? There is a loud silence on them: The first one has been signed into law and probably somebody pockets the funds for sanitary towels every financial year!
Come on! When did providing a basic need to needy girls for them to have equal chances become a challenge? Suppose the men in Parliament gave this matter a little more oomph, as they do when discussing NG-CDF issues?
With this high cost of living, the cost of sanitary pads is just ridiculous with the most affordable retailing at around Sh80 yet, less a year ago, we it was Sh50. Sadly, most Kenyan families are not on payroll and live on daily earnings. A girl will not pick a date when her parents have cash to have her periods; the menses visit when the family is worrying about their next meal. Will the family sacrifice a meal for sanitary hygiene? You tell me.
This young girl would have easily secured her monthly package at school if somebody did not decide they needed the funds more than she did. What becomes of the next couple of days is, the child fakes an illness to avoid school and hides at home. And since we do not talk of menstruation freely, because it’s a “curse”, she becomes a “difficult child”.
Let us end the stigma by providing our children with this basic need. The ‘cut’ is something a boy can choose to do or not but menstruation will always come. The pads are, to girls, their rights just as textbooks and chalk. Make them affordable and our womenfolk will have one less thing to worry about.
- Miss Nthiana is a sexual and reproductive health advocate at Naya Kenya. [email protected].
