A GNA Feature by Regina Benneh
Sunyani, June 29, GNA – For a teenage lady to run away from school to end her education all because she is unable to afford menstrual materials is a serious matter.
Scenario
That was the sad story of a girl in the boarding house of a Senior High School, on a fateful day. She did not have money for a sanitary pad, so she stole one of her friends’ money and went to buy a pad to put herself up.
The girl returned to the dormitory and was questioned by her colleagues about the money which she confessed and tried to explain, but they did not allow her and began hooting at her.
The girl who could no longer stand the shame; therefore, fled and that was the end.
All efforts by the school authority to get her back to school proved futile.
What is menstruation?
According to health experts, menstruation is when blood and tissue from the uterus come out of the genital organ of a girl or woman.
It usually happens every month and is believed that every girl or woman has 28 days menstrual cycle and flow for at least five days that was why.
Menstrual Day is usually celebrated precisely on the 28th day of the month May every year.
Menstruation, a normal and healthy part among women and girls continues to be a problem in the society because of socio-cultural factors like discrimination and taboos associated with it.
Lack of information about menstruation, lack of access to affordable and quality menstrual hygiene products as well as the stigma and social norms associated with menstruation have led to unhygienic and unhealthy menstrual practices.
Negative attitudes
These have created misconceptions and negative attitudes, shaming, bullying and even gender-based violence resulting to poor menstrual health and hygiene exacerbated social and economic inequalities and negatively impacting education, health and safety and human development.
It has been observed in some rural areas that most schools lack appropriate sanitary facilities and hygiene services which are crucial for girls and female teachers to manage menstruation in schools.
This therefore affected some schoolgirls, causing them to miss classes during their menstruation or even drop out of school.
For schools to have female-friendly facilities and incorporate information on menstruation into the curriculum for both girls and boys could help to reduce stigma and contribute to better education and health outcomes.
Challenges
Some do not attend school during menstruation because of the lack of adequate toilets and private rooms. So, they prefer staying at home during menstruation and thus miss classes for one to three school days, a situation which has a negative impact on their academic performance.
So, there is the need for girls to be educated on health and hygiene since only few girls had prior knowledge about menstruation before their first experience.
Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM) in totality is about menstruators using a clean menstrual management material to absorb or collect blood that can be changed in privacy as often as necessary for the duration of the menstruation period, using soap and water for washing one’s body as required, and having access to facilities to dispose of used menstrual management materials.
If girls and women had access to safe and affordable sanitary materials to manage their menstruation, that will decrease the risk of infections which could have effects on their reproductive health, maternal outcomes and fertility.
Poor menstrual hygiene could pose serious health risks such as reproductive and urinary tract infections which could result in future infertility and birth complications. So, neglecting to wash hands after changing menstrual products could spread infections, such as hepatitis B and thrush.
Studies on sanitary pads
Studies have found that giving free sanitary pads to girls could lead to a significant reduction in sexually transmitted infections and bacterial in their genital organs because lack of means for hygienic management of menstruation could cause discomfort, psychological stress and added to the shame and sometimes depression suffered by some girls in such circumstances.
Expert’s advice
A health expert at the Sunyani Municipal Health Directorate, Mrs. Monica Danso in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) recently advised women and girls to change sanitary pads every four to six hours during menstruation to maintain proper vaginal health.
Mrs. Danso, an Assistant Staff Midwife at the Family Planning Unit of the Directorate explained doing that would help to reduce the risk of getting urinal tract infections (UTI) and the incidence of rashes in the female genital organ.
According to her, practising good menstrual hygiene during menstruation ensured good reproductive health and helped to minimize the risk of getting cervical cancer.
“Desist from wearing sanitary pads for more than four hours during menstruation and wash yourself properly and regularly to reduce the increasing vulnerability to reproductive tract infections,” Mrs. Danso emphasized.
Mrs. Danso said females in menstrual period needed to wash their hands properly after removing wet sanitary pads to prevent other infections which might affect their health.
She added that in practising good menstrual hygiene, the person must wrap the used sanitary pad nicely in a polythene bag and either burn or dispose it in a pit but not be exposed to other people around the environment to affect their health.
Gender Equality
Promoting menstrual health and hygiene is an important means to safeguarding women’s dignity, privacy, body integrity and consequently their self-confidence. So, awareness of MHM contributed to building an enabling environment of non-discrimination and gender equality whereby females’ voices were heard and created platform for them to become leaders and managers.
It is significant to state that discriminatory social norms, cultural taboos and stigma associated with menstruation in some typically, culturally immersed remote rural communities could lead girls to follow unsafe practices.
This is because a study has indicated that some girls did not bath during their menstruation periods because it was considered a social taboo to meet water during the menstrual cycle and even some girls were compelled by custom to stay and sleep in the hut outside the home of a household during such periods.
Economy
Improving menstrual hygiene and providing access to affordable menstrual materials could help to improve girls’ access to education, opening more options for jobs, promotions and entrepreneurship. Thus, unleashing female contributions to the overall growth of the national economy, rather than keeping them at home.
Recently some girls in Tamale said they had been able to develop local menstrual material from the husk of plantain and was about to be approved by the Food and Drugs Authority. Such initiatives must be encouraged to save girls from dropping out of school for being unable to access adequate menstrual products.
Environment
Ensuring women and girls had access to sustainable and quality products and improving the management of the disposal of menstrual products, could make a big difference to the environment.
Mrs. Harriet Osei-Amoah Owusu, a banker and a philanthropist told the GNA when she donated a quantity of sanitary pads to girls in three Senior High Schools in the Bono and Ahafo Regions that she preferred the use of reusable sanitary pads as that could be an environmentally-friendly material by rotten instead of the types which were about 90 per cent polythene and not bio-degradable.
But the problem with the use of reusable sanitary pads with cloth component might have health consequences since such pads must have to be washed and dried in the sun.
Considering the social stigma and taboos surrounding menstruation, could the use of reusable sanitary pads be possible?
Mrs. Owusu entreated parents to provide sanitary pads every month as an additional responsibility for their girl-children in the adolescent age to relieve them of the burden of getting menstrual products to avoid a situation where a girl-child would be deprived of education because of lack sanitary products.
GNA