Where Does India Stand In Menstrual Hygiene Management?

Menstruation Hygiene Management (MGM) in India is not a private but rather a public policy issue. Given the fact that 23 million girls drop out of school every year, and most women cannot afford to purchase a menstrual hygiene product. It leads to a pathway for government intervention in the menstrual hygiene discourse. From distributing pads in schools and Anganwadis to building toilets in every district and village as a part of the Swachh Bharat initiative, there have been many such policy decisions by the country’s government. 

MHM Initiatives Taken At The Central Level

One of the earliest schemes in India relating to education under, The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act had required schools to compulsorily have sanitation and water facilities. It also included gender-separated toilets to increase the count of girl students. 

Further, in the year 2011, the Government of India introduced the menstrual hygiene scheme, which was later extended to all the districts in 2014. The purpose of the scheme was to educate girl children and teenagers about menstrual hygiene management, to distribute sanitary pads for on many occasions as low cost as 6 rupees, and to raise awareness about menstrual hygiene practices.

Further, Swachh Bharat Mission and Swachh Bharat: Swachh Vidyalaya scheme emphasizes menstrual hygiene management as a central issue. It involves building toilets and improving sanitation facilities in schools to ensure that privacy and hygiene are maintained and promote gender-sensitive health care practices to assist girls in schools. Following this, there have been guidelines relating to menstrual hygiene management that aim to involve all the stakeholders to create a more menstrual equitable society. 

MHM Initiatives In Delhi

Delhi has been a benchmark state when it comes to menstrual hygiene management initiatives. From as recently as  2020, the Minister for Women and Child Development of Delhi has started a week-long initiative on the occasion of menstrual hygiene management day.

The aim is to distribute sanitary pads and to educate families about menstrual hygiene management. The most positive addition under this week-long drive has been the inclusion of men and families in the conversation.

The previous year itself, the government under the central ‘Menstrual hygiene scheme’ had distributed 50,000 pads to girls from Delhi’s slums. The scheme also involved allocating funds to the Asha workers to educate young girls about safe menstrual hygiene practices.

There have been similar schemes such as UDDAN which also involved the distribution of sanitary pads at a nominal rate of 6 rs, following which Delhi High Court also directed the government to upscale its menstrual hygiene schemes and to include conducting an interactive session in schools every two weeks to answer the query of young girls to ensure that the dropout rate is reduced.

Not only government initiatives but civil societies and corporates have come ahead too for the cause of menstrual hygiene management. One such prominent example is of Interglobe employees, who not only distributed sanitary pads in the schools but also conducted sessions about menstrual stigma and hygiene management.

We Need To Start By Normalizing Menstruation For Menstruators

Although there have been various initiatives at the central and state level- one of the things missing from the menstrual hygiene discourse in India is the lack of efforts at normalizing menstruation for menstruators. The schemes have majorly revolved around hardcore steps such as the construction of toilets and distribution of pads and, to some extent, have missed out on the opportunity to educate families of the children, where menstrual taboos and menstrual stigma are prominent.

It is also essential for the central government and state governments of various states to come together and formulate a uniform menstrual hygiene policy so that all the stakeholders and different sections that make up the menstruating population of India get sufficient attention to their specific and unique issues.  The priorities should include strengthening and improving the capacity of spreading awareness by training the facilitators.

To ensure that these government policies are sustainable and have a long term outcome, a broader set of inequalities that persist, and the social norms that perpetuate menstrual discrimination should be targeted. The government policies should use the opportunity to educate school students beyond MHM by dealing with topics revolving around sexual and reproductive health such as prevention of teenage pregnancies, maintenance of sexual health and reproductive rights, consent, and sexual crimes.

Further, there is a need for allocating funds in research on the impact of these government-based initiatives to check upon the outcome and implementation of such policies.

At the most basic level, any such MHM program needs to go beyond the mere teaching of biological aspects or methods of product use and disposal to address psychosocial menstrual changes and the methods of dealing with them. Since these programs mainly target school-going adolescents, it is necessary to make menstrual hygiene management and such ancillary education to the high number of girls who have either dropped out or are out of school now.