Faith Wangoki Muthoni lists common questions they are asked during visits to schools. There are basic ones about how menstruation works, but also more anxiety-driven questions like ‘what if I run out of blood?’ and thoughts about infertility. There is, for example, a widespread notion that painkillers like paracetamol can cause infertility – for many, a fate far worse than the monthly menstrual pains.
One question is repeated in both Kenya and Uganda, but also in Tanzania and many other countries in Sub-Saharan Africa: Do I have to have sex with my boyfriend now? What should I do if I am forced to? Menstruation is strongly associated with sexual availability, regardless of what the girls themselves want. Gender equality, relationships, and sexual abuse become central themes around the first menstruation.
ZanaAfrica prioritises the girls.
‘But we have to get the boys on board too. They’re the ones who laugh and tease them. On several occasions, we’ve heard of girls who were teased and never returned to school,’ Catherine Onyango says.
Everyone has to be involved, those who menstruate and those who do not. Schools, politicians, families, the media – all of society. Not least in order to start chipping away at the shame. One small piece at a time. With the aim of eventually eradicating it.
Faith Wangoki Muthoni speaks of a girl who pretended to go to school when she had her period, but instead went to the neighbours’ garden.
‘The neighbours worked and so she just stood there and bled all day. Down onto the ground. Then she washed and went home in the evening. She lived alone with her father and didn’t dare talk to him or anyone else about what was happening.’
* * *
Around 2005, in a school outside the Swedish city of Gothenburg, YouTuber and author Clara Henry was going to learn about menstruation. It was in fourth grade and the whole thing took 15 minutes. In the book I’ve Got My Period. So What? (2015), Clara Henry describes how the girls in the class got to hear an embarrassed talk they did not understand much of, and asks herself: ‘Why was menstruation, with its associated shame and stigma, something we would have to discover and find a solution to on our own?’
In Sweden, knowledge about menstruation is primarily communicated during sex education, integrated into various school subjects. For a long time, it has been an area marked by a lack of knowledge combined with the uneasiness of innumerable teachers. In a survey from the Public Health Agency of Sweden, only two out of ten young people between 15 and 24 years old stated that they had received good sex education. It is a lottery; the quality varies greatly between schools. Complaints about inadequacies are on constant repeat.
The Swedish pattern is hardly unique. When the UN body UNESCO investigated the quality of teaching about puberty, the body, and reproduction in ten countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, it turned out to be inadequate or missing completely in all countries but one (Malawi). Ignorance was one explanation, as well as the shortage of both teachers and materials. Added to that is the uneasiness, insecurity, and embarrassment at having to speak openly about anything tangential to sexuality. According to UNESCO, it was also rare to involve the parents, even though it has been described as a clear success factor.
In studies from across the world, those who menstruate repeat that they have not been adequately prepared. The silence around that which falls under sex education is not just a betrayal by the adult world with most serious consequences, but also violates the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and several other human rights conventions.
In many classrooms, menstruation is not mentioned at all. In others, the information is communicated too late, when many have been menstruating for several years. By that time, the dropouts have already begun. Almost half of all the children in the world drop out of school in the beginning of their teens; most of them live in the poorest parts. It is also around this age that the gap between the genders begins to grow. In high-income countries, too, school dropouts are marked by a connection to socioeconomic status. Poverty is a risk factor at both a country and an individual level. By dropping out, many miss out on what might be taught about menstruation in school.
Outside of school, there is family and friends. Mothers are a common source of information about the existence of menstruation, but they are all too often restrained by their own shame and embarrassment. It happens fast. If you dare ask at all. Otherwise, you will have to look for information yourself, an undertaking that hinges on access to computers and the Internet, books and magazines, TV and radio.
In countries like India, Kenya, and Uganda, the organisations that work with menstruation step in. They patch up and fill in the gaps the best they can with their educational efforts.
* * *
Mythri means female friend in the ancient Indian language Sanskrit. In the animated Indian film Mythri (2010), the main character Lakshmi is no longer allowed to play with boys when she gets her period. Preferably, she should not be playing at all. Her mother also decides to keep her home from school. Lakshmi’s teacher protests and a lesson about menstruation follows. The film is partly based on questions from more than 4,000 girls in the Indian state of Karnataka, girls who have participated in workshops with the menstrual educator Sinu Joseph and her colleagues. Since its launch in 2010, it has spread around India and is available in six local languages, in addition to Hindi and English. The film is used by several organisations working with menstruation. It has also been distributed in schools around the state, on the initiative of Karnataka’s Department of Education.
In addition to biological facts, it also covers how menstrual protection made by cloth should be washed and dried, relief of menstrual pains, as well as common misconceptions about menstrual blood as something unclean and that one cannot play or participate in sports during menstruation.
‘But I always begin by talking about my own period, about the shame I felt as an 11-year-old, which shaped my childhood,’ Sinu Joseph says.
The second time we meet, roughly six months after the menstruation conference in Boston, we are having coffee in a café in Bangalore where a faint scent from the floral stands outside wafts through the door every time it opens. Red, white, yellow, and orange flowers line the street at a market that also winds into the side streets in the Malleshwara district, with its many shops, restaurants, and temples.
All Sinu Joseph was told when she got her first period was that it happened too soon. She had many questions, but when her query about whether boys also menstruate was met with ridicule, she fell silent. During the last few years she has been sharing her experience of having to stand up to answer a question in school – with a blood stain on her clothes – during the school visits. But for a long time, that moment when the teacher called her name was like a bad dream. She never spoke to the boy who sat behind her again. It was as if he did not exist.
‘When I enter a classroom, the girls begin by closing the door and the windows, and then their eyes and ears. But when I tell my embarrassing story, they also start to share. Many think that they’re sick and about to die when they get their first period.’
In order to successfully reach behind the closed eyes and ears, you must first come to terms with your own shame, according to Sinu Joseph. And listen without judging.
The MITU Foundation is located on the same flower-decorated street as the café. In a small house on a scorching hot roof terrace, three women are sewing bags, tote bags, pencil cases, wallets, and mobile phone cases of reused fabrics and old newspaper. Since plastic bags were banned for environmental reasons in Karnataka at the beginning of 2016, the sewing machines have been running hot. Among other things, the earnings go towards distributing free pads in schools and spreading knowledge about menstruation. They have screened Sinu Joseph’s film about Lakshmi many times.
‘When we’re out in the countryside, the fact that we’re showing a film is exciting in itself and immediately creates an interest. It’s also a big advanta
ge that it’s available in Karnataka’s local language,’ says Kala Charlu, who founded MITU in 2009.
MITU offers two different kinds of menstrual hygiene education in schools, for those who have menstruated and for those who will. Their experience is that the latter group knows very little, some of them nothing at all.
‘When they get their period, they and their ability to become mothers are celebrated. Yet, at the same time, they’re mainly taught what not to do as their mothers list a number of restrictions.’
Kala Charlu is having a hard time hiding her critical attitude to the restrictions that can follow on menstruation. At the same time, she strongly advocates an informed and free choice. The person who wants to comply with the restrictions should be respected, just like how the choice of menstrual protection – be it disposable pads, cloth pads, or something else – is up to the individual. Her self-imposed task is to lay the groundwork for a choice, based in knowledge, that is as free as possible.
‘There are supposed to be lessons about menstruation and other puberty-related issues in the eighth or ninth grade, but teachers usually skip it and encourage the students to read the chapter on their own. There is also significant resistance against raising these issues at all, based on the belief that it leads to promiscuous behaviour.’
All research shows the opposite. Sex education delays the sexual debut. But this information is often met with scepticism.
When MITU visits a school, they gather the girls and close the doors, conforming to the demand for secrecy in order to reach the group they have chosen. The teachers who are present encourage the students to ask questions about this ‘forbidden subject’. But it is only after the sessions that they walk up, one by one, whispering their questions.
‘The most important knowledge that we communicate is simply that they’re not alone, that their mothers, grandmothers, teachers, and women all over the world menstruate. That it’s a natural process created by God and not a sickness or curse.’
* * *
The road between Karnataka in the south and Gujarat in the north goes through India’s largest city, Mumbai. In the industrial town of Ahmedabad, 1,500 kilometres further north, Menstrupedia’s main offices are located.
Menstrupedia publishes a graphic novel aimed at girls between nine and fourteen years old. The nine-year-old main character Pinki’s sister is a doctor and serves as an authority for girls filled with questions as they enter puberty. Menstrupedia’s website also offers a popular menstruation guide with the headings puberty, menstruation, hygiene, and myths.
Just like Sinu Joseph, the charismatic founder Aditi Gupta has openly shared her own experiences of teenage menstruation, but in her case with focus on – and criticism of – various restrictions. She has explained that she was not allowed to sit on other people’s beds, touch anything holy, wash or dry her clothes together with other laundry, or come near the jars of pickled fruits and vegetables. Various kinds of pickles are a staple in Indian households, served with most dishes. Some families take great pride in their recipes, which are passed down the generations. The rule about not touching the jars during menstruation is well known and carries strong symbolism, even though far from everyone adheres to it.
In 2014, Menstrupedia launched the campaign ‘Touch the Pickle’ together with the company Procter & Gamble and their pads Whisper. In the commercial, a young woman is playing tennis and jogging in white clothes. Cheered on by a group of surprised older women, she touches a jar of pickles and encourages the viewers to break menstrual taboos. The campaign was a hit; the hashtag #TouchThePickle spread on social media and inspired an intense discussion about menstruation, shame, and taboos.
Menstrupedia’s graphic novel about Pinki has been translated into several languages and launched in both the neighbouring country Nepal and the more distant Uruguay.
* * *
Alfred Mutunda brings water and instant coffee powder into the garden, a well-trimmed lawn with pruned bushes. In what used to be a residential building in one of the nicer areas of Nairobi, the international organisation WASH United keeps its African head-quarters. The house is well-hidden behind one of the high walls that are characteristic of the residential neighbourhoods here. A guard opens and closes the gate.
WASH United is the organisation behind the annual ‘Menstrual Hygiene Day’ on 28 May, an initiative that has made them world famous within the menstrual movement. But they also work on other issues related to water, hygiene, and sanitation. Alfred Mutunda has an education in public health and works as the organisation’s regional coordinator for menstruation.
‘We in the WASH sector are the ones who have been pursuing the issue of menstruation here in Kenya. In the beginning, we focused on infrastructure like access to toilets and water. After a while, we realised that it didn’t help, the girls were still away from school.’
The menstruation-friendly school toilets needed to be complemented with education. Alfred Mutunda and his colleagues began to travel around to schools.
‘Conditions and needs vary in the different parts of the country. First, we listen, and then we try to adapt the message. We recently visited a coastal area where the girls explained that the first period is seen as a sign that they’re ready to marry.’
This was followed by questions about how to hide the menses in order to delay marriage. That time, child marriage became a pressing topic of discussion for the menstrual educators.
He describes the shortage of the resources needed to manage menstruation as ‘enormous’, including everything from knowledge and menstrual protection to toilets, waste disposal, and water. The consequences range from problematic to catastrophic.
‘Sometimes, we hear of girls who in their desperation agree to have sex in order to get money for menstrual products. When that happens, we have to try to talk about it.’
He falls silent. What can they do? In some cases, there is simply no money. In others, it is about the parents’ priorities and being able to raise your voice to ask for help. Underlying it all is the widespread occurrence of sexual relations between young girls and older men that, like in the neighbouring country Uganda, has become a way to access material things otherwise out of reach. It is also one of the explanations for why far more young women between 15 and 24 years old are affected by HIV than men of the same age.
Everything is connected: money, gender, power – and menstrual shame.
WASH United is trying to wash away the persistent mark of shame, counteract the embarrassing and disgusting, and instead make menstruation something ‘cool’. One approach is the menstrual cycle bracelets, which they make together with the students. One bead for each day in the menstrual cycle, with a special colour for the days of bleeding. The hope is that they will eventually be worn with pride.
But what about the adults, those who also fight to manage their menstruation, albeit in other contexts? There are many organisations focusing on schools, Alfred Mutunda notes, and adds that ‘it is completely understandable’. But there are also examples of initiatives with the aim of spreading information to those who are not in school. Like in the textile factories in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Nazneen Huq and the organisation Change, who have managed to put menstruation on the agenda in almost 90 textile factories, also educate textile workers about various health issues. Menstruation is an obvious topic.
Once a month, those who are called ‘community health workers’ get three hours of training with Change at the textile factories. In turn, they gather a group of around 25 colleagues to meet for an hour and pass on the knowledge.
‘Later, they go home. And because many live in crowded conditions they cook outside, together with their neighbours. It’s an opportunity to keep on sharing. Ideally it also happens within the family,’ says Nazneen Huq.
A chain through which the new knowledge is spread to a wider circle is what Alfred Mutunda in Nairobi is hoping for too. That those who bring the menstruation bracelets home will open up to their parents and siblings,
to friends and neighbours.
‘But there is a disconnect, certainly. We know far too little about how it works for those who are outside the world of education,’ he says.
The schools are an obvious starting point for spreading knowledge. At the same time, they are far from all-reaching.
It is obvious that it troubles Alfred Mutunda.
8
BLOODY MENSTRUAL PROTECTION!
The pot holes grow deeper and more frequent. Soon, it becomes pointless to try to find a way around them. The mud extends before us. In roughly half an hour’s drive, the city has undergone a metamorphosis. From skyscrapers in the city centre to tin sheds on the periphery. We have travelled eastward, but the same thing happens in the west. Around 60 per cent of Nairobi’s 3.5 million inhabitants live in areas that are called slums. It is hard to know how many of them live here in Mukuru. At a rough estimate – 300,000. In Kibera, on the other side of the city centre with its fancy conference venues and bank offices, at least as many people live. The two slums are connected by the river Ngong, which passes by Kibera before flowing through Mukuru.
We cross the train tracks that serve as a footpath. Disastrous infrastructure is a feature common to all the urban slums of the world. There is no clean water or electricity here. The dwellings are crowded and substandard. The garbage is stacked high and the latrines are rarely emptied. And there are way too few of them, which means that girls and women risk being subjected to sexual abuse when walking to remote latrines. In 2014, 15,000 women in Mukuru signed a petition to demand that the sanitary situation in the area be mapped. In October 2014, some one hundred of them protested among the skyscrapers in central Nairobi to alert decision makers to the fact that many cannot afford various fees for visiting the latrine and are instead forced to relieve themselves in plastic bags.
Wanjiru Kepha and Valentine Samoei have brought rubber boots. They work at the menstruation organisation Huru International and are prepared to squelch through the sea of mud that the rainy season leaves behind in Mukuru. But the boots will not be needed. Our destination is located on a piece of land that belongs to the Catholic Church. It is an area in Mukuru where the organisation AmericaShare runs various projects, partly funded by the travel company that also founded the organisation. Inside the gates, there is a preschool, a playground, a basketball court, and a big green lawn. There is also a computer room and a library, both of which are packed.
It's Only Blood_Shattering the Taboo of Menstruation Page 10
