Menstruation is a phase every girl comes across in her life, and that confrontation offers her the reality of life she is going to deal with for more than half of her age. Mine happened too, around the time I was in 7th standard. I try my best to recall but there is almost null visibility to it. With my childhood being spent at my aunt’s house, that moment was something that shook me from within. All I remember is my 25 year old cousin sister placing my stained undies in front of me from under my bed. I was hiding them because I was too scared to tell anybody about it. I didn’t know how everyone was going to react to it and what have I done that this is happening to me. I thought that there was no emotional support for me and I was too scared to deal with it. The moment my cousin learnt about it, she passed a smile at me. She made me feel comfortable about it first, and then gave me an orientation about the pursuit I had entered into.
Later that day, she told me how to put on a pad, how to discard it, where to discard it and how it is extremely normal for women to bleed. She told me about the basic etiquettes that need to be followed before, during and after the cycle, like hand washing, frequent changing of pads, hygiene and many other things. I consider myself blessed that I had someone to guide me through this part of my life.
But when I compared the situation between me and fellow children, I saw them using a piece of cloth and cotton. What made it worse was the repeated use of a particular piece of cloth which eventually made them sick. The reasons behind using cloth and cotton were: i) unaffordability of sanitary napkins, (ii) lack of knowledge of using them. I’ve heard of cases where women would hurt themselves by using variety of clothes like blouse of saris or silk clothes which cause irritation to the skin and in the most extreme cases, the pin of the blouse would enter their vagina. And no pain could ever compensate for it. Therefore, through the platform of Youth ki Awaaz, I want to raise my voice against such brutality of poverty and request the government to ensure that women switch to the pads than risking their lives using unhygienic means. Moreover this responsibility is not limited to making the product reach the target audience but also, proper knowledge and know-how of using them. According to GlobalNewswire report of 20th Feb (2020), out of 365 million menstruating women, only 18% of them use sanitary napkins and rest 82% of population use “unhygienic products” like newspapers, cloth, rags etc. And it is really awful and ghastly. Necessary steps must be taken to ensure that feminine health and hygiene is being acknowledged in the country where people worship goddesses more than anything.