• Significant barriers to high-quality menstrual hygiene management persist across Kenya.
• A survey showed that 65 per cent of women and girls in Kenya cannot afford sanitary pads.
Image: /COURTESY
As schools are closed because of the pandemic, needy girls don't get free sanitary pads and many women can't afford them. Both are likely to resort to using rags.
Thursday was World Menstrual Hygiene Day and DSW Kenya, a German NGO, said alternative avenues should be set up to give girls towels while out of school.
It urged the Education ministry and Department for Gender Affairs to ensure girls get pads as required by the Basic Education (Amendment) Act of 2017.
Significant barriers to high-quality menstrual hygiene management persist countrywide and are a particular challenge for low-income women and girls.
A survey has showed 65 per cent of Kenyan women cannot afford sanitary pads. Just 12 per cent of girls said they would be comfortable receiving information from their mothers.
Only 32 per cent of schools in rural areas have a private place for girls to change their menstrual products.
DSW country director Everlyn Samba said schoolgirls cannot manage menstruation adequately and with dignity.
This year’s theme, ‘Periods in Pandemic’, highlights how the challenges faced by women during menstruation have worsened during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“More needs to be done to secure the right of girls and women to manage their menstruation with dignity,” Samba said.
She said women and girls were already struggling with poverty, flooding and the impacts of the coronavirus.
According to one survey, only five out of 10 women and girls reported having everything to manage their menstruation. That's 46 per cent of the women and girls.
“It is highly likely the twin crises of Covid-19 and floods have compromised the right of girls and women to manage menstruation adequately and with dignity, especially those from rural and poor urban communities," Samba said.
The UN Population Fund in March called for special attention to menstrual health items since supply chains have been disrupted during the pandemic.
The Basic Education (Amendment) Act requires the government to provide free, sufficient and quality sanitary towels to every girl in need in public schools.
The government allocated Sh470 million to the programme in 2017-18 but the allocation for 2019-20 was unclear.
“To improve on the delivery of the sanitary towel programme, the National Assembly needs to allocate adequate funds in the 2020-21 budget," the DSW director said.
“The Cabinet Secretary for Education is on record saying the Sh470 million allocated is not sufficient.”
A government report published in November 2019 said the sanitary towel programme targeted 3.7 million girls in 2017-18 and 4.2 million girls in 2018-19 but it only reached 2.9 million girls in 2017-18 and 1.02 million in 2018-19.
(Edited by V. Graham)