People are the backbone of any country, still in 21st century, because of a very natural process that every menstruator goes through in their life called “menstruation”, they are treated with ignorance and humiliation.
Every 28 days, around the globe half the world's population menstruates.
Although it is one of the very natural bodily processes it is portrayed by the
society as a taboo or hurdle for people to actively participate in the
activities of their communities.
It stands as a great challenge for millions of menstruators especially in developing countries, from economically weaker
sections who cannot afford to buy sanitary napkins.
They are forced to use
primitive alternatives like newspapers, rags of cloth, bark, ash etc which are
ineffective, unhygienic and that cause various health hazards such as
reproductive tract infections cervical cancer or toxic shock syndrome.
Because
of the widespread societal taboo surrounding menstruation most of the people living in poverty miss out school and work.
Surveys Indicating lack of Awareness and High Pricing of Napkins
Even though we celebrate May 28 as the Menstrual
Hygiene day that aims to break taboo & raise awareness about the importance
of good menstrual hygiene management for menstruators worldwide,
but still the problems persists.
Two statistics are quoted under this scenario:
upto 23% Of Indian girls drop out school when they reach puberty, nearly 90% of
Indian women do not use sanitary pads, instead they use waste paper etc. which
are dangerous for their health.
Research indicates that people in several
developing countries miss upto 50 school days a year and in rural India alone,
a shocking million people are under house arrest due to menstruation.
Research by UNICEF India in Bihar and Jharkhand found that while 85% of girl
use cloth as menstrual absorbent, 65% does not know what sanitary pads are.
Lack of money to buy and no awareness of how to use sanitary napkin was the
reason behind this.
83% of menstruators in the same study has no idea what to expect
when they start bleeding.
In such a context, to make more people aware as
well as to increase the availability of law cost sanitary napkins, various
researches and innovations have been carried out, which have let to the
lowering of the costs of many health care products. But still, the cost of
sanitary napkin remains prohibitively priced.
Innovators who came forward to solve the problem
One of the greatest achievements
in such a context was that by one Arunachalem Murugaranthan: a social
entrepreneur also known as the "menstrual man" who, through his innovative
measures provided a great relief to women by inventing a technique to produce
low-cost sanitary napkins.
In India, Murugaranthan‟s company Jayshree
Industries is strong example of this growing movement. He began his research into
sanitary napkins when he found that his wife used rags during her periods,
because buying napkin was costly.
He put in various efforts to create a viable
sanitary napkin alternative but he lacked willing research candidates because
nor his wife or students would give him honest feedback.
He started testing the
sanitary napkins on himself using synthetic bladder filled with animal blood.
After having discovered a low-cost viable option, he began to distribute these
sanitary napkins freely to girls in medical colleges etc. for test subject.
From
the feedback and insights he got from these students involved in the
experiments, he was able to develop a simple machine to mass produce sanitary
napkins.
Today the Jayshree Industry make 1000 napkins a day for as little as
rupees 16 for a pack of 8. It also helps rural women buy as well as produce
through NGOs, government loans and rural self-help groups.
This approach
encourages female micro-entrepreneurs, and also creates awareness about the
benefits of using sanitary napkins and reproductive health among women and
society at large.
In 2014, the Time magazine placed Murugaranthan in its list
of 100 most influential people in the world. In 2016 he was awarded Padmashri
award by the Government of India. His story was the subject of a prize winning
documentary "The Menstrual Man‟ by Amit Vermani.
Though his effort is worth
appreciating and the problem of low availability and usage of sanitary napkins
has been resolved to some extent, a recent study by the UNICEF in Bihar has
found out that nearly 60%of women dispose of their used pad and cloth by
burying them in open fields.
The Problem of Disposal in larger picture
In India, the waste disposal infrastructure is
already over loaded and most of the work of garbage disposal is being done by
contractual and temporary waste pickers.
The many more millions of pads that
the sanitary pad revolution aims to supply can be both a huge burden and a
biohazard for the humans engage in cleaning them out. Solutions are needed in a
braver and broader way to resist this problem and to make women aware about
their health and hygiene.
Written By - Chavi Goel
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