Sanitary pads are a luxury in many homes in Nigeria. A pack of disposable sanitary pads on the average costs between N300.00 and N350.00. For a three or five day menstrual period, girls will conservatively, use two packs costing 700.00naira. In twelve months, that amounts to N8, 400.00 naira. A woman and her two daughters will spend 25,200.00 naira yearly for disposable pads. Imagine the cost, if she has more than two girls.
Many girls cannot afford disposable sanitary pads, so they use washable cloth cut from anything, pieces of materials from tailors or foam cut from mattresses and more. How many of them use these materials hygienically? That introduces the challenge of disinfectants to keep reusable cloths and other unimaginable materials used by girls germs free.
And disinfectants also cost money, so now more than ever, there is a need to supply free disposable sanitary pads or disinfectants to girls; subsidise sanitary pads or just make affordable alternatives available to school girls in Nigeria.
These would help both in rural areas and public schools, in urban centres. Let’s not even think of how women and girls cope in refugee camps and how much they need free sanitary pads.
It’s not cliché anymore that girls drop out of school because of lack of disposable pads during their menstrual periods. They also lack water and private safe spaces to change sanitary pads in schools. This brings me to the issue of menstrual hygiene management in schools. The shame and embarrassment a girl feels, sitting there, leaking, in the classroom without sanitary pads in the school to offer her.
Have you heard of the award winning documentary; ‘Period. End of a Sentence?’ It encapsulates all I want to say about the issues we need to consider. Importantly, it is partly about the shame of period poverty that forces girls to drop out of school and the cultural stigma around menstruation. We should not be talking in hushed tones when talking about menstruation and menstruators.
This is 2020. That magical year of the future, when everything is supposed to be possible and doable, is now here.
You may want to ask if this has worked elsewhere in Africa. Oh yes. Kenya achieved that feat in 2017. According to the BBC, Kenya stopped taxing sanitary products , and for six years, from 2011- 2017, the government set aside funds to distribute sanitary pads to underserved girls. It budgeted $5 million for the 2017-2018 fiscal year, up from $4 million compared to the last fiscal year. This gave access to about 4 million school girls in the first instance.
There are templates across the world. Muruga (Arunachalam Muruganantham) in India fabricated an affordable sanitary pad making machine that has helped in getting affordable and quality sanitary pads to many in low income communities.
The Kwazulu Natal Province of South Africa provides free sanitary pads to school girls. In Uganda, although the Museveni government balked, there is a sanitary pad factory making affordable pads for girls. Zambia and Botswana are making concerted efforts. Free sanitary pads is not a developing world matter, the Scottish government has launched a project to distribute tampons and pads to women who can’t afford them.
Politicians should get real and factor this in when they consider empowering women with cash, as they often do. When they give 5,000 naira to a woman for empowerment, what exactly do they want her to use it for? For starters, it doesn’t buy her or her daughter, disposable sanitary pads for a year.
There are many women conferences all over the place, soon there would Women History Month, then International Women’s Day and many such milestone days for women and girls. Let us begin to consider the harsh realities of the world we live in and be more pragmatic about the welfare needs of women and girls. Let us actively support girls in school with free or affordable sanitary pads. I know already, some are thinking fraud and mismanagement in the distribution. This calls for strategic planning and accountability in schools. And that can be worked out.
I yearn for a policy on this issue. I therefore reiterate my call for affordable sanitary pads to girls in schools, if we cannot make it free. And why can it not be free? It is an item that clearly distinguishes a human male from female, it is associated with reproduction and the perpetuation of the human race. If condoms are free and are so easily accessible, why not sanitary pads?
Anike-ade Funke Treasure is a media consultant, broadcast journalist and author.
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