Every single woman in the world - unless personal, medical reasons mean otherwise - menstruates. For many girls and women, it is that rather unwelcome monthly visitor that can bring with it all kinds of collateral symptoms. From bloating and abdominal cramps all the way to nausea and headaches. These are just a few of the physical occurrences, and in the interest of brevity; we will omit the various emotional ones.
In short, it’s not a walk in the park for many females, but just imagine how much more difficult it would be if you didn’t even have the necessary facilities to deal with it. Unfortunately, this is the reality for millions of females in the poorer parts of the world.
Growing up in the Western world, I am fortunate enough to have a vast choice of female hygiene products. There are tampons and sanitary towels of all absorbency levels, big or small - thick and winged maxi-pads or thin and discreet pantyliners. There are also a range of menstrual cups and washable and re-useable ‘period underwear’. I have even had the surreal experience of scented sanitary towels, for goodness sake! Hopefully now that you know this, you will forgive my ignorance when I tell you I have only recently learnt that female hygiene products of any kind are not even available in many countries meaning, of course, that many girls and women have to go entirely without.
You likely won’t need me to tell you why this is such a problem, after all, it goes without saying that periods without hygiene products get very messy and would be fairly inconvenient to say the least. Females who live in these countries have no other choice but to make do with rags and even leaves as means of blood absorption in an effort to make the process more manageable.
There is another problem on top of this though; girls in these areas are avoiding school when they are menstruating. This is because they want to avoid the embarrassment of bleeding freely in school and in front of their peers, and while it is nothing to be ashamed of, it is understandable that these girls want to refrain from doing this in public. It is undoubtedly hard enough to deal with at home, let alone at school.
So, there we have it, girls are missing out days of schooling at a time every single month, add this all together and you have an awful lot of missed education. The frustration lies in the fact that this problem is all down to a lack of feminine hygiene products. The saying “For want of a nail, the war was lost” is unfortunately apt here – or perhaps we could rephrase it for this situation: For want of a tampon, the girl’s education is lost.
There are a few ways in which we can help though; many charities are working hard to supply both re-usable and disposable feminine hygiene products to those who need it around the world.
By donating, or buying your own or a loved one's feminine hygiene products from a company that will then donate to this cause, you are not only allowing females the opportunity to menstruate with dignity and convenience, you are also helping to stop an unnecessary disruption to millions of young girls’ educations.
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Here is a brilliant website that covers more about the issue and gives you an entire list of websites through which you can donate and help in many different ways.
#TheHomelessPeriod is a UK-based initiative that has been raising money and supplies to ensure that the UK’s homeless female population have access feminine hygiene products. Another pressing issue revolving around women’s rights to menstruate with dignity.
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No matter how small your donation, anything helps.
Thank you for your time!
[Main image credit goes to gapyear.com].
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