Accessing menstruation products remains a key challenge to high quality menstrual hygiene management in Kenya and across the world. It is a norm for menstruators to miss school when they are menstruating due to lack of sanitary pads. 500 million menstruators worldwide lack the means to manage their menstruation. Moreover, 65% menstruators in Kenya cannot afford sanitary pads.
The situation is so dire in Kenya that some menstruators go an extra mile. They use mattress stuffing and used rags during menstruation, causing acute infections and painful sores. Others use cotton and scraps of fabrics, which irritate and sting the skin. Why would menstruation be handled in such an inhuman and unhygienic manner? This is despite pledges by the governments to provide affordable and free sanitary products.
The Challenges
Kenya has been at the forefront of easing access to sanitary products. They scrapped the tax on menstrual products and allocated money for free pads to menstruators in primary and secondary schools. Despite these efforts, having menstruation still remains unaffordable in the country. Most of the allocated funds goes into few politicians’ pockets. The few pads that are provided to schools are stolen by teachers and students. Besides, they are allocated one pad each, which is not enough to manage periods for a week.
It is shameful for girls to be subjected to uncomfortable situations by politicians, who see free pad allocation programmes as an investment opportunity. The scarce resource, when put into good use, can help girls menstruate hygienically and keep them in school.
The high cost of sanitary pads limit its accessibility to a majority of low-income menstruators, especially marginalised and rural areas. One packet of P&G’s Always, a brand of sanitary pad, goes at $0.80, while a majority of menstruators in Kenya live below $1 a day due to high levels of poverty and gender inequity. How do you expect them to abandon the essential needs such as food and shelter and purchase sanitary pads?
What Can Be Done
Studies show that two out of three pad users in rural Kenya receive them from sexual partners. This leaves menstruators at a higher risk of contracting sexually transmitted infections and getting early unintended pregnancies. Menstrual hygiene management products including disposable sanitary pads, reusable, reusable insertables (menstrual cups) cloth-pads and disposable insertables (tampons) are limited in rural and remote areas across Kenya.
Sanitary products should be easily accessible and affordable to keep girls in school. A variety of sanitary products should also be made available for menstruators to choose as they suit them. The barriers towards accessibility of menstrual hygiene management products such as taboos against using commercially reusable and disposable insertables should be managed through comprehensive menstrual hygiene education.
High-priced sanitary pads force menstruators to resort to unhygienic menstrual management practices. Poor menstrual hygiene management practices lead to higher prevalence of lower reproductive tract infections. Barring menstruators from accessing sanitary pads through acts of corruption is a shameful act and a violation of menstruators’ right to highest attainable standard of health. It is the role of every government to ensure that its citizens are healthy, empowered and menstruating in a hygienic and dignified way.