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Michelle Tatu was afraid she was dying when she got her first period. So, she gorged herself with bits of clothes and cotton in a bid to stem the bleeding.
All along, she kept silent about it because she was too frightened to tell her parents what was happening. Consequently, she spent her school day terrified blood would leak out, exposing her to ridicule from her classmates.
“At first I was so scared, I didn’t know what it was, I thought I had hurt myself,” she told Uk-based Guardian during a women’s right awareness protest in Kenya. The march had been organised by non-profit The Cup, which provides menstrual cups to girls like Tatu.
Today, many girls all over Africa are afraid like Tatu was. That fear still lurks in the crannies of Africa and her experience is common across Kenya, and the rest of the continent. As many as one in 10 girls in sub-saharan Africa are missing school during menstruation.
Read also: Shola Mos-Shogbamimu, Business Lawyer, women’s rights & diversity advocate
Girls have endured discrimination due to menstruation for decades, with serious human rights violations. A report by UNFPA underscored how shame, stigma, and misinformation, around period undermine the well-being of women and girls, making them vulnerable to gender discrimination, child marriage, exclusion, violence, poverty, and untreated health problems.
“Menstruation happens to all girls, why would I be embarrassed?” Tatu had wondered.
Menstrual Hygiene Day (MHD) marked on May 28 every year creates an opportunity for awareness on the importance of good menstrual hygiene management. Female activists, feminists, and other women groups seize the day to dispel myths and taboos associated with menstruation.
This year, the message is simple: menstrual dignity is all they want, and an end to stigma.
Micro messages like “say no period of shame” were pushed by non-governmental organizations focused on women and girls in Africa, calling on every girl to know that menstruation is normal. “COVID-19 will not ‘lockdown’ periods. I am a woman and yes, I bleed and I am not ashamed. It’s time for action, time to let every girl woman and girl know that menstruation is normal and it is nothing to be ashamed of,” said Nnedi Jane, a gender-based violence advocate.
Stigma and taboo are major barriers to menstrual hygiene management. Cited earlier, UNFPA’S paper finds that menstruation taboos can keep women and girls from touching water or cooking, attending religious ceremonies, or engaging in community activities. These taboos reinforce gender-based discrimination, perpetuating the idea that menstruating women and girls are unclean.
UNESCO believes that periods don’t stop for COVID-19 pandemic, adding it is a human right to manage periods safely and in dignity at all times. In addition, the women arm of United Nations in Nigeria, Unwomen called for action to end period stigma now and even after the pandemic.
