In Kenya’s informal settlements, young girls are constantly at risk of falling prey to unscrupulous individuals.
Most especially, at crucial times such as during their menstrual periods, they may be lured into exchanging sex for sanitary pads.
Boxgirls Kenya on Saturday launched an automated sanitary pad dispenser at Faith Christian School in Baba Dogo, Ruaraka Constituency to help girls access pads at any time.
The girls will only need to insert five shillings into the machine and get two pieces of pads that can last them half a day or an entire day, depending on their cycle.
Leadership and Mentorship head at Boxgirls, Maureen Atitwa said that they did a survey of the performance of girls in the school back in July and one major thing stood out.
“A lot of girls’ performance dropped once they reached puberty in the school, so we did another survey to establish the root cause of this,” she said.
They found out that a majority of the girls missed classes during their periods due to a lack of access to enough sanitary pads to sustain them through their entire cycle.
Although well-wishers sometimes provide schools with free pads, Atitwa said they end up running out after two or three months and the girls become stranded once again.
“Some girls said they use one pad for an entire day because that is the only one they have,” she said.
Atitwa said that one girl confided to them that at break-time, she goes to the toilet so she can bleed directly into the toilet, then she puts the pad she wore in the morning back on.
“Others choose to use old clothes or tissues as pads but they are prone to leaks and that leads to period shaming by their peers so instead, they opt to stay home until they finish menstruating,” she said.
These heart-breaking stories are what drove the organisation into creating the booth.
