I think it’s absolutely commendable and much needed for our Parliamentarians to talk about and and discuss Shashi Tharoor’s Women’s Sexual, Reproductive and Menstrual Rights Bill (2018). Especially with marital rape being legal in India, marriage then becomes a license to have ‘non-consensual sex’. And consent isn’t even something that people think is necessary in a marriage while having sex with your husband. I have heard so many stories from people saying they have to comply with a husband’s desires when ever he feels the need to have sex, without the slightest consideration for a woman’s needs or desires. If a woman does not comply then she becomes a ‘bad wife’.
A bill talking about Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM) is much needed as well. Being in the MHM sector, and doing a period fellowship, I work with adolescent girls and women in rural communities on the issue of menstrual health and hygiene. I feel that pads are not the solution to the current MHM scenario in India. It’s much more than that. Women need to be educated and be given knowledge about why menstruation occurs, and we need to push more women to talk about it openly, without stigma. Only then will we be able to break the taboo.
We cannot be talking about disposable sanitary napkin without a mechanism in place for the safe disposal of these pads. Many women already have access to free pads in many states because of state schemes. In Karnataka itself, girls are being provided for by Shuchi in all the government schools and Anganwadis.
If a pad is accessible, then what is the problem? The problem is safe usage and disposal. Women tend to use one pad for the entire day. Pads should at no cost be used for more than four to six hours.
Many tend to wash their pads and dispose them in gutters, burn them, or bury them. I’m talking about rural places where proper garbage collection does not happen. So pads become not a boon, but rather a bane.
A pad contains plastic, and disposable pads with polymer gel (blue liquid) take approximately 700 years to decompose. So what are we doing with this mounting problem of disposal? And what is the sustainability of this method then?
I hope while this Bill, there is a holistic view and approach of looking at MHM as an issue, and a taboo. We need to see how the government can provide alternative and sustainable methods of managing menstruation. Pads cannot be thrust into women’s faces, rather she must be given the knowledge about menstrual health, and accessibility to sustainable products and disposal, to make an informed choice.
Pads, again, are not a solution to the menstrual hygiene problem in India.
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