FREETOWN, Sierra Leone, 29 May 2023 - UNFPA Sierra Leone on 28 May 2023 joined the world in observing Menstrual Hygiene Day, a day set aside to raise awareness, promote good menstrual health and hygiene, and end stigma associated with menstruation.
This year’s theme, “Making menstruation a normal fact of life by 2030’, speaks to the need to break taboos related to menstruation and ensure that girls and women who menstruate fully and equally participate in everyday life.
Lack of access to the appropriate menstrual products affects the fundamental right of girls and women to go to school and work. Ensuring good menstrual hygiene requires having safe, acceptable and reliable supplies to manage menstruation, privacy to change materials, facilities to safely and privately wash, and information to make informed choices.
Menstrual hygiene is a health as well as a human rights issue and a key aspect of women’s reproductive health, with 800 million people between the ages of 15 to 49 having their menstruation daily.
Tragically, an estimated 500 million people lack access to menstrual products and adequate facilities for menstrual health. More often than not, this results in exclusion, embarrassment and shame for women and girls, exacerbates social and economic barriers, and reinforces gender inequalities.
This year, the Girls Advocacy Development Network, with support from UNFPA, undertook a series of awareness raising and training activities with adolescents and young people on the theme ‘‘Break The Silence Around Periods’’ in Western Rural [Waterloo] and Pujehun districts.
Adolescent girls were supported with hygiene kits containing menstrual hygiene products, and work sessions were held to brainstorm on how to address period poverty and stigma around menstruation in Sierra Leone.
The importance of supporting efforts to ease the burden on young girls was also stressed to the young men present, all of whom agreed to be period champions for the girls in their families and communities. Finally, the participants engaged in a demonstration on how to make reusable pads, with emphasis on menstrual hygiene and proper maintenance of the reusable pads.
The support provided by UNFPA was aimed at achieving the goal of keeping adolescent girls in school by providing them with sanitary pads, increasing knowledge on hygienic practices during menstruation, and increasing advocacy for addressing socio-economic factors that hinder girls’ access to affordable menstrual hygiene and sanitation products.
Samester Hannah Kargbo, Executive Director of the Girls Advocacy Development Network, menstrual health is a right and reaffirmed that all girls and women must enjoy dignity and freedom from discrimination.
UNFPA Sierra Leone Country Representative, Nadia Rasheed added that “making menstruation a normal fact of life reduces exclusion and narrows social and economic inequalities. To end period poverty, we must ensure that all girls and women can manage menstruation with comfort and dignity.”
Media Contacts:
Islander Kabia | Communications Unit| UNFPA Sierra Leone | e-mail: ikabia@unfpa.org
