New Delhi, April 12
Toronto-based poet Rupi
Kaur's image showing blood-stained pants was recently deleted by a
mobile photo and video sharing service Instagram, stating it goes
"against community guidelines". Menstruation has always been a "taboo"
subject resulting in a conspicuous silence surrounding this natural body
function in women.
Experts feel this silence needs to be
replaced with a conversation that would result in changing mindsets from
rejection to confidence. Despite women's emancipation, many girls and
women still face rejection during "those days" and are asked to not
visit a temple, not to attend pujas, not cook food, sit on separate beds
and not discuss it with the male members of the family.
"Menstruation
is a taboo across the globe. Myths associated with it are mostly
observed in developing countries especially in villages. Many boys/men
doen't even know the basic science/biology behind menstrual hygiene.
Until and unless we create basic awareness about menstrual hygiene among
girls, women, boy and men the situation will not change," Jaydeep
Mandal, founder, of Aakar Innovations that enables women to produce and
distribute affordable, high-quality compostable sanitary napkins within
their communities, told IANS.
Nupur Gupta, consultant and unit
head, gynecologist and obstetrician at Gurggaon's Paras Hospital, said
breaking a taboo starts with broaching the subject.
"The best
place to do so is in schools, where the topic can be incorporated into
hygiene and sexual education. This requires sound knowledge (and in some
cases also the courage of teachers) on how to use sanitary items and
related issues," Gupta told IANS.
Understanding that menstruation
is a distinct biological female attribute women should be "proud" of
needs to be fostered, she added.
Kathy Walkling, co-founder at
Eco Femme, a social enterprise working in the area of menstrual hygiene
management, said that consequences of this include adolescent girls not
given accurate preparatory information prior to onset of menstruation.
Listing
the other consequences, Walkling told IANS: "Insufficient attention in
society to the needs of adolescent girls for privacy and a dignified way
to manage menstruation, expectations of girls and women to adhere to
many rules and restrictions that for many are perceived as constraining
(e.g. not entering temple) and for those who cannot afford it and
adoption of unhealthy practices such as using unsanitary materials to
absorb the menstrual flow."
Serving the needs of economically
disadvantaged girls and women in India, Eco Femme provides menstrual
health education and free washable pads to adolescent girls through its
Pad-forPad programme.
Experts point out that menstrual hygiene
has an important role in genital tract infections and is also one of the
causes of cervical cancer.
According to gynecologists, use of
alternative sanitary care measures such as unsterilised cloth, sand and
ash make women susceptible to infections and diseases.
Cervical
cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer deaths among women in
India, with approximately 1.32 lakh new cases being diagnosed and about
74,000 deaths every year.
Filling this lacuna, Aditi Gupta and
Tuhin Paul-founded Menstrupedia, a friendly guide to periods that helps
girls and women stay healthy and active during their periods.
Menstrupedia
aims at delivering informative and entertaining content through
different media and shattering the myths and misunderstandings
surrounding menstruation for ages.
"The culture of silence is the
main cause of all the problems and awareness and the only way out.
Urinary tract infections are very common. Only 12 percent of Indian
women used sanitary napkins," Gupta told IANS.
"It's self-esteem
and self-confidence which is hampered the most. If a girl or a women
can't even talk about her natural biological process, how will she ever
talk about any violence that she faces on her body," she asked.
Gupta
added that information about menstruation is not complex, it is a small
amount of information that every girl and woman should be provided with
- and that too at an early age so that she is better prepared to take
care of herself during her cycle.
"But its complex to achieve
this when teachers skip the chapter on periods, the school curricula
address this only in class eight and nine while girls get their periods
in class six or seven. When a girl gets her period, it's the mothers who
say not to speak about it even to their father of bothers. We raise our
girls with shame and boys with ignorance," she added.
(Shweta Sharma can be contacted [email protected])
