From pads to cups, for hygienic period

In early March this year, key stakeholders in the sector of reproductive health lauded the movie Period. End of a Sentence for winning an Oscar in the documentary category. While I am elated that conversations around periods are becoming mainstream, it’s time to spare a thought to the nature of such conversations.

Last year, we had the release of the Akshay Kumar-starrer Padman. Social media was populated with campaigns such as the #padmanchallenge. The government even roped in Akshay Kumar for their public service sanitary pad ads; we are now forced to watch him peddle around the wrong message before the start of every movie.

The problem

Movies like Padman and Period. End of a Sentence offer a simplistic solution to fairly complex problems. Here are a few inherent problems that beg to be deconstructed:

They are movies: When movies about seemingly real-life situations and social initiatives are made, those watching them assume that this is the ground reality. I have no problems pandering to the suspension of disbelief while watching an action movie, but this doesn’t hold water for a movie about social issues. It makes the audience believe that this is the modus operandi of rural India.

As someone who is actively working in the field, let me tell you that the ground reality is entirely different. There is no one solution that works for all, nor does everything change magically with the introduction of a new product. And Akshay Kumar will not pop up with a pad (of questionable quality) when you desperately need one.

Providing pads is not the answer: The deep-rooted problems that women face in rural or urban areas cannot be wished away by providing pads. Politicians and some NGOs in the space believe that providing pads will solve the problems that womenfolk face. What about problems such as lack of knowledge about female reproductive health?

I remember talking to a girl from one of the government schools in rural Bangalore. While the girls were provided a specified number of free pads each month through a government programme, they weren’t briefed about how to use them. The girl in question simply used one pad for more than 12 hours. She was shocked to learn that one must change a disposable pad at least once every 4-5 hours. Lack of clean water and toilets in schools and workplaces complicate this knowledge gap even further.

Is anyone thinking of the quality of the pads? The quality of the low-cost pads that movies like Padman and Period. End of a Sentence espouse is indubitably questionable. Cheaper is not always better. Some NGOs that received these pads as donations have noted that the pads are of deplorable quality and start to disintegrate even as one is wearing them. Aiming for low-cost inventions should not come at the cost of compromised quality. Investing in sustainable products of better quality is the way forward.

Has anyone even thought about disposal? Any solution proposed for eradicating period poverty must provide a proper plan for disposal. Priyanka Nagpal Jain, founder of SochGreen eco-friendly period products and a YouTube blogger at Hygiene and You, asks if 100% of the menstruating women use disposable pads, where is the space to dispose them. You may say, there are incinerators. Why not use them?

I once went to a government school in the heart of Bangalore to conduct a Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM) session. After our session, the class leader who offered to show us the incinerator ushered us into a damp, dark bathroom in the back alleys of the school. The incinerator was mounted on the wall. Suitably impressed, I asked her to show how it works. She fumbled for a bit and then said the girls barely use it. Why? Because there is no power most of the times for the incinerator to run.

Plausible solution

Any proffered solution that does not consider problems at the ground level is only creating more problems to solve than solving existing ones. Changes must be brought in at the levels of policy and decision-making. The movies want to make India a 100% napkin-using country. In the quest for this, we don’t have to forget our roots of using cloth; we only need to promote proper use of cloth in a hygienic way or use menstrual cups.

(The writer works as a content editor and volunteers as an MHM facilitator in Bengaluru)