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Why dignified menstruation matters?

Published : Monday, 8 June, 2020 at 12:00 AM  Count : 1261

 
PARVEZ BABUL

PARVEZ BABUL

Women's menstruation or menstrual period should no longer be a matter of negligence and whisper; rather it must be dignified and an issue of talking publicly too. Due to some stereotyped wrong information, ideas, taboos, stigma, concepts and age old superstitions many menstruating girls and women faced and have been bound to face life threatening harmful practices imposed to them by the family members, neighbours and the community.
Those avoidable, but unnecessary practices are found in Bangladesh, Nepal, India and other low and middle income countries in South Asia and across the globe as well. Menstruating girls and women face increased risks of health hazards during disasters, floods, cyclones among other disasters and emergency situation. Research shows that girls and women are more vulnerable during disasters in general. Especially menstruating poor girls and women become most vulnerable and disadvantaged due to lack of their participation in decision-making, planning of disaster response, maintaining required privacy at home and cyclone shelter centres.

I may remind you of super cyclone Amphan, as it is related to my story that hits Bangladesh and India recently, and caused remarkable devastation of both of the countries.
So the cyclone-affected girls and women are talking about their menstrual health hazards they faced during the cyclone Amphan, and the floods and disasters they faced before. The problems of dignified menstruation are more or less same in all the countries, because the question of power privilege and poverty are there.  Though the dignified menstruation is a human right concern as aligned with the principles of Human Rights Declaration by the United Nations in 1948, but the result is dissatisfactory due to many reasons.

Dr Kamala Gurung, Gender and Natural Resource Management Specialist of ICIMOD-Nepal shared her thoughts regarding mainstreaming menstrual hygiene in disaster. She correctly pointed out that, the issue of menstrual hygiene is overlooked. Because disaster response primarily includes immediate evacuation, the construction of temporary shelters, and the extension of support to fulfil urgent basic needs. However, post-disaster relief and recovery operations seldom focus on women's needs regarding menstrual health management. There are a number of reasons for this, all related to one another. First, disaster relief work is often helmed and carried out predominantly by men, to whom the monthly menstrual cycle that women and girls go through is not a natural consideration.

Men do not consider menstrual health to be an important and dignified issue in emergency relief response. Second, most communities regard menstruation a cultural taboo, and it is not comfortably discussed. Women and girls living in shelters are therefore often unable and/or unwilling to openly discuss their immediate menstrual hygiene needs among disaster relief workers, who are almost exclusively male. Third, public health bodies do not incorporate menstrual health management into emergency relief responses as other health issues are seen as more immediate and given priority. Menstrual hygiene is therefore overlooked despite it being a significant aspect of women's health and rights. So dignified menstrual health management must be incorporated with the disaster response programmes.

UN Women acts to provide water and sanitation to all.  Dilruba Haider, Programme Specialist of UN Women in Bangladesh pointed out that water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) has always been a concern for women and girls in cyclone shelters in Bangladesh. In most shelters although the toilets are separately identified for men and women, since those toilets are close-by, women do not always feel comfortable using their toilets.

Lack of lighting facility is another reason of concern and fear of abuse amongst the adolescent girls, and women. In some of the badly affected areas, communities had to stay back in the shelters for two/ three days while recovering homesteads. So the toilet facilities have been a real concern of the women and girls. Menstrual hygiene was also reported as a big challenge for adolescent girls and women of reproductive age.

Safety and security is a concern for women and girls in the shelters as well as dignified menstruation. Women and girls must have separate toilet facilities well apart from men's, and adequate lighting around the WASH facilities. Need to distribute urgently traditional materials like cloth, which women and girls are used to use during menstrual period, just as food is distributed to the inmates.

Menstruation is a natural process in every adolescent girl and woman's life as part of reproduction of human-beings. So the menstruation must be dignified, because women's dignified menstruation and reproductive health rights are human rights. To ensure those rights husbands must be very cooperative to their wives, and the other family members must listen to the menstruating girls and women to help them ensuring their menstruation dignified.  
During disasters, relief and rehabilitation operations increased budgetary allocation is a must to supply the menstrual hygiene management materials to the girls and women. All the stakeholders should explore all-inclusive and most comprehensive integrated approach to ensure dignified menstruation. Because dignified menstruation is a right to all the girls and women of the world.

Parvez Babul is a poet, journalist and author









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