AES#76 Period Poverty

Period poverty is a lack of access to menstrual hygiene products and reproductive health education, often as a result of an individual's economic background. It is a public health problem which affects individuals in both developing and developed countries. In Malawi, sanitary pads cost the same amount as an entire day's salary. In India, only 12% of mentruators have access to menstrual hygiene products. As a result, the remaining population are forced to use unsafe materials such as rags. 

In the USA, one in four teens have missed class due to the lack of access to menstrual hygiene products. In other countries, girls will often drop out of school when they hit puberty, as a result of period poverty. It negatively impact's an individual's life in several ways. 

Affecting populations who do not have access to the safe, hygenic, menstrual products they need, period poverty can cause physical health risks and has been linked to reproductive and urinary tract infections, according to UNICEF. Consequently, young girls who do not receive education on menstrual hygiene are more likely to experience early pregnancies and thus enter child marriages, malnourishment, domestic violence, and pregnancy complications. Worryingly, lockdowns during the pandemic across the world have closed life-saving services for women at a time when they have been most needed, destroying the livehoods of vulnerable communities. 

What is its prevalence in Indonesia? 

In Indonesia, society consuders menstruators as dirty and impure, particularly in more conservative regions of the country. This often leads to: 

1. poor access to education

2. discrimination against girls 

3. mental health implications 

4. deteriorates emotional wellbeing

On a global scale, the WSSCC organization is working to improve sanitation and hygiene through education and behaviour change with initiatives like hosting menstrual waste workshops in West and Central Afrika, and proposing toilet design to efficiently discard menstrual waste in India. 

THE MINA foundation was founded by 3 dynamic South African women who uplift lives and keep girls in school by providing them with menstrual products. 

PERIOD is a nonprofit that struves to eradicate period poverty and stigma through service, education and advocacy