Periods do not stop for pandemics, and neither should conversations and education about it. Period.
Periods are not a choice. For a healthy menstruator they occur once a month – be it bad days, sluggish economy or a pandemic. While the world is in disarray figuring what to do next, half of the people staying indoors, trying to maintain social distance, washing hands and protecting themselves continue to bleed; every month.
With the country under lockdown, there has been some focus on the lack of access to menstrual products and infrastructure to manage menstruation for girls and women. Periods don’t stop for pandemics; therefore, menstrual absorbents are being made available to girls and women. There was significant noise created when sanitary pads were omitted from the list of essentials, and the government responded by adding them to the list on March 30, 2020. And without a doubt, the immediate need of the hour is being addressed in unorganised manners by several NGOs, foundations, self-help groups under National Rural Livelihoods Mission as well as blocks and panchayats using existing funds innovatively.
However, menstruation is not just about managing periods hygienically. One of the larger problems around periods and menstruation is about the shame and stigma faced by the menstruator and the lack of dignity in managing periods safely – with or without sanitary pads. Menstruation is not just about the period blood; it is about the life the menstruator leads while bleeding and the other days.
Stigma and taboos around menstruation are not the creation of the menstruator. It is a result of socialisation, therefore, imposed upon the menstruator externally. Periods are not the problem; unequal gender norms are, lack of awareness and information around periods is, and complete apathy to a normal biological process that continues to be discriminatory is.
The past five years can be called the giant leap in the journey of menstrual health and hygiene in the country. The Centre, as well as state governments, have recognised that awareness on menstruation to manage periods safely and with dignity is vital to ensure adolescent girls (if not all menstruators) are not left behind in life. With the National Guideline of Menstrual Hygiene launched by the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation in 2015 to programs like Rashtriya Kishore Swastya Karikram (RKSK) focused on providing services through Adolescent Friendly Health Clinics. The Kishori Shakti Yojana (KSY), aimed at improving the health and nutritional status of adolescent girls. The Scheme For Empowerment of Adolescent Girls, (SABLA) aimed to reach out to out-of-school girls through Anganwadi centres and the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) which has a focus of providing separate toilets for girls as well as safe disposal of menstrual waste as a part of its second phase of ODF+ program on menstruation.
While none of the programs have education about menstruation as the core focus, all of them are imparted through schools or within communities through the frontline workers like ANMs, ASHAs, Jal Sahiyyas, Anganwadi workers become the touchpoint to impart education, if at all. The plans look good, but the implementation is a challenge. Sessions conducted in schools are often reduced to awareness and information on managing periods hygienically and bundled under soft skills training.
Facilitators, trainers and teachers who conduct sessions on menstrual health and hygiene will often tell you that a single session does nothing. Menstruation goes beyond biology and has a social and psychological aspect too. Misconceptions, stigma, myths and taboos are deeply ingrained in girls. They need to be spoken about repeatedly and in different contexts to ensure there is a change in the mindset and eventually the behaviour. Kinjal Sharma, a menstrual health educator who conducts training for teachers and organisations says, “It is not enough to just talk to the girls. Teachers need as much support. And it becomes very important to build safe environments where students and teachers are comfortable to not just say what they feel but also practice their new-found knowledge. Schools provide an opportunity to create such an environment.”
Now with the schools shut and frontline workers overburdened and under cared, what happens to the conversations and education on menstrual health and hygiene? While a break in regular school for girls in low-income communities means that they may never return to school again due to pressures to marry early, take up care roles at home, or face a higher risk of human trafficking. And while they do, demands of the curriculum take precedence over soft skills education such as menstruation.
The pandemic is a wakeup call. It provides an opportunity to re-think the frameworks that should be in place to impart holistic learning in schools, especially at primary and secondary levels. To normalise this biological process, conversations need to be consistent, reliable and unbiased. The National Education Policy 2019 excludes the mention of menstruation, once again making it a subject outside the regular course of life. The need is for a comprehensive and age-appropriate module to be introduced across different grades in schools. This alone will ensure that students and teachers are trained comprehensively to remove the bias and shame many of them carry within.
In such a scenario normalisation of menstruation is less about hygiene practices and more about fundamental human rights. Education about menstruation is intrinsically connected to a host of adolescent issues including health, nutrition, child protection, education and learning, and sanitation and hygiene, and so on. Unless the education system starts making these connections, an odd chapter in 7th or 8th grade and a few sessions here and there does not equate to education on menstruation. These will not change mindsets and attitudes and certainly not behaviours.
Let’s not forget the year that went by saw a college in India force students to strip to their underwear to check who was on their period and in response; a God-man claimed that menstruating women cooking food will be reborn as dogs. It is also the year when women continue to fight for their right to enter a temple while on their period. And recent changes in labour law in multiple states in India say that it is no longer compulsory for the employer to provide clean and accessible toilets to workers in factories, while news about factories endangering the health of women by prescribing pills to control period pains and workers in Marathwada performing hysterectomies to be able to work without a break is still fresh.
The news above is from across the country. And these things will continue unless menstruation is looked at as a human rights issue along with health and hygiene. Reducing menstruation to bleeding and hiding that blood with menstrual absorbents is not going to normalise menstruation. To menstruate with dignity is a human right and if we wish to achieve SDG 4 of ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all then education about menstruation is not an option but a priority.
NOTE: The author recognises that education on menstruation is equally required for out-of-school menstruators, and the particular article has focused on education policy and schools.