MORE EFFORTS FOR MENSTRUAL HEALTH: Lack of information, high cost of products affect adolescent girls

IN A given month, an adolescent girl from a vulnerable home would be absent from school – sometimes for three to four days straight, due to menstrual poverty, ultimately translating into days of missed classes and lessons.

A 2011 report by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) estimated that one in 10 African adolescent girls miss school during menses and eventually drop out because of menstruation-related issues.

These issues vary from the inaccessibility of affordable sanitary protection, the social taboos related to menstruation and the culture of silence that surrounds it.

Martha Chanda, a Lusaka-based sexual and reproductive health activist, says this cultural scenario is concerning.

“Menstruation is not a choice, unlike other things that everyone seems to be paying so much attention to,” she says.

She says the continued silence around menstruation, combined with limited information at home and schools, is impacting negatively on girls and women’s health. Many girls are affected by menstrual hygiene management issues in schools, hence it has become a serious barrier and threat to their education.

Add also the cost of sanitary pads which could be out of reach to some, especially those from families of low-income status, it has not made things any easier.

“This prompts girls to resort to the use of Banana fibres, sponges, pieces of cloth and cotton. However, such alternatives pose health risks and discomfort to girls, lowering their dignity, concentration and performance levels in class,” she says.

Whereas most urban schools have at least responded positively to the call of menstrual hygiene through establishing menstrual hygiene and sanitation-friendly facilities, the story is different for those in rural areas.

“We should encourage local initiatives that produce reusable sanitary pads and make them accessible and affordable,” she says. “It is also imperative to promote girl talks in schools facilitated by mainly female teachers, counsellors and parents, with the rationale of discussing menstrual hygiene.”

With poverty as high as 78 percent in rural Zambia, girls there cannot afford sanitary pads, which on average cost about K20 per packet of 10 pads. In order to improvise, adolescent girls then resort to using rags and always miss class when their menses are heavy for fear of staining their clothes because most girls lack supplies to safely and hygienically manage menstruation while at school.

Not only that, girls’ school attendance becomes less consistent after fifth grade, according to a report on Zambia by UNICEF, the UN child advocacy agency.

Apart from sanitary supplies, insufficient water and sanitation facilities in schools are also a key factor contributing to adolescent girls dropping out of schools.

A 2008 report of the Ministry of General Education’s education management information systems revealed that “most girls find it difficult to manage their menstruation in environments without water and convenient sanitation facilities, such as washrooms and sanitary disposable points.”

The report estimates that only 29 percent of schools in Zambia met the World Health Organisation’s recommended pupil-toilet ratio of 25 boys per toilet and only nine percent met the recommended ratio of 20 girls per toilet.

While policy pronouncements take time to implement, every time wasted, a girl is dropping out of school because of menstrual-related issues.

“All I know is that when a girl is on her periods, she is unclean,” answered a grade seven pupil at Kamanga Primary School when asked what he knows about menstrual hygiene.

Now, it is this kind of mentality, coupled with all the many other cultural myths and beliefs surrounding menstruation, that has forced the information gap to widen.

Again, in traditional Africa, when a girl or woman is menstruating, she is not, among other things, allowed to cook.

UNESCO says the cost of sanitary pads is a problem throughout the continent and estimates that one in 10 girls in Africa misses school during their menses and eventually drop out.

For most pupils in rural schools, using sanitary pads is a far-fetched dream, at least until free distribution for rural girls begins.

Gender activists have been calling for free distribution of sanitary pads as opposed to condoms because menstruation is not a choice, whereas sex is.

Reigning Miss Zambia Natasha Mapulanga is one such other activist that has taken it upon herself to champion calls for an inclusive menstrual health education and hygiene, especially among adolescents that fall below the privileged divide.

Another such organisation, among many others, is the faith-based organisation Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA). It too has been implementing programmes such as a three-year-long Menstrual Health in Urban Townships (METRO BMZ) project worth 364,000 euros in Lusaka.

Speaking at the launch of the project recently, ADRA Zambia country director Kennedy Habasimbi stated that the project is aimed at increasing gender equality and empowerment of vulnerable township girls and young women.

“We shall do this by addressing some identified barriers and challenges to accessing adequate menstrual health and hygiene management,” he said. “ADRA’s theory of change on menstrual hygiene management is that to enhance access, we need to ensure awareness, availability of services/ products and affordability.”

The project intends to reach about 60,000 community members who include girls, women and boys.

NOTE: This article was also published in the Zambia Daily Mail newspaper of Friday, January 6, 2023.