Menstruation is Not the Problem

"Menstruation is Not the Problem"

‘Polluting touch’, that is the name given to a touch when a menstruating woman touches something she is restricted to touch. There’s another common knowing in our country Nepal among different groups of people, that menstruating woman is ritually impure. The biggest problem is that people think that menstruation is itself a problem and that is why many girls and women have to go through all kinds of physical, social and psychosocial obstacles in their life. It is all because of people’s wrong way of perceiving it due to lack of adequate knowledge and the misleading sociocultural beliefs that have strong roots in the foundational pipeline of our societal system, passed on from generation to generation. Menstruation is ingression to womanhood. It’s the biggest gift a girl and the world can get because that is how it is possible to create a new life. But the problem is that we have failed to appreciate and embrace the beauty of menstruation. Likewise, we are giving less priority and attention to the real problems related to menstrual health. For many adolescent girls of Nepal, menarche is often associated with traumatic, fearful and negative experiences. And this is due to all kinds of sociocultural problems, physical and psychological problems associated with menstruation that a girl has to go through alone without any reliable social support, education and knowledge about menstrual health and hygiene. According to the recent research done in 2017, it is known that half of adolescent girls in Nepal lack information and education about menstrual health and hygiene. Likewise, 89% of women experience some form of restrictions related to menstruation. Misleading socio-cultural beliefs and practices and social stigma regarding menstruation affects the physical, social and more importantly psychological health of a girl and a woman in a bad way. On top of sociocultural, physical and psychological problems associated with menstrual health there are other problems regarding health services and facilities associated to menstrual health. It is reported that 83% of menstruating girls use cloth and only 15% of them use sanitary pads. This shows that many of them either cannot afford sanitary pads or napkins or they do not have adequate information about sanitary products and their use. Likewise, many schools and colleges of Nepal lack toilets or restroom with required facilities like dustbins to dispose used sanitary pads, soaps and water facilities, etc. This has directly or indirectly led to problems like absenteeism of girls in the schools, lack of concentration in classroom leading to poor academic performances, gender discrimination and poor sanitation and hygiene. On the other hand, due to increased education and awareness among people, they are changing the way they perceive menstruation as a problem and restrictions and social stigmas are also decreasing especially in urban cities of Nepal. But still menstrual health and hygiene management is not getting enough priority and attention from the key stakeholders and from the policy level. So, more attention from higher level is required to deal with issues related to menstrual health and hygiene management. Along with that health services and facilities should be made adolescent friendly, schools and colleges should be menstrual hygiene friendly and comprehensive sexuality education should be included in the school curriculum. Some of the non-governmental organizations and youth led organizations like Visible Impact, Y-PEER Nepal, YUWA, ODEF Nepal, SOLID Nepal, etc. are working in this area to educate people especially adolescents and young adults about diverse issues and topics like roles of men in menstruation health, gender equality ,sexual and reproductive health, process and significance of menstruation, menstrual products and related services and facilities related to MHM to increase knowledge and to enable people to change their attitude and behavior. Hence, adequate knowledge and information on this topic is pivotal because it is linked to long-term sexual and reproductive health and it can help to empower girls and women by increasing their confidence to make right decisions about their health throughout all the stages of their life. We should not silence the beauty of menstruation by taking it as a problem and by not talking about it openly but we should know about its significance and talk about the real problems associated with it. It is of course difficult to bring immediate changes in this area as it a very sensitive topic for our Nepalese society but change is not impossible.