MENSTRUATION: NOT ONLY A HEALTH ISSUE, BUT A HUMAN RIGHT DUTY

 

MENSTRUATION: NOT ONLY A HEALTH ISSUE, BUT A HUMAN RIGHT DUTY

- Carlotta Pagan

 

What better day than May 28 to break taboos? On this date, Menstrual Hygiene Day is celebrated, an occasion that began initially as a social media awareness campaign by a german non-profit organization and some social entrepreneurs with an attempt to make their message of peace go viral and ended up becoming one of the most important fulcrums for menstrual hygiene management awareness worldwide today.

 

 

Picture 1: School girls holding motivationalmotposterssaying “There are lot more to shame than periods” and “Menstruation is my power and pride”  for the Menstrual Hygiene Day event

 

Celebrated with street demonstrations, eccentric outfits, and bursts of color, it is an important reminder of how important it actually is for women around the world to be assured of functioning toilets, proper privacy, and the correct hygienic means to contain menstrual flow, and to realize how far we still have to go, in many countries, to achieve this basic rights.

 

The street demonstrations are often followed by public speeches, performances, art exhibitions, and movie screenings, all of which demonstrates how unity among people can be strength for a real change and those who can contribute with a small amount, are always welcome.

 

The choice of this date is certainly no coincidence: the month of May, the fifth month of the year, was chosen to represent the normal average length of menstruation, while the 28th of the month was thought to indicate the average length of a menstrual cycle.

 

 

Picture 2:Painting on newspaper sheet depicting menstrual pain and cramps in women without access to primary health care services made by Kurdish activist Zehra Dogan, Santa Giulia Museum, Brescia, Italy

 

As the posters for the 2023 occasion announce, the aim for this year is to“Build a world where no one is held back because they menstruate, by 2030”. A hope, perhaps, rather than a goal, if we consider the conditions in which most South-East Asian countries still find themselves today.

It is a dramatic situation. Another placard, which a young activist waves in her hands amid thousands of protesters in a Pakistan city, says “solidarity is needed”.

And it is true. Action is needed,as soon as possible, and above all, everyone's contribution is necessary. These are countries where there is a shortage of water, where primary resources are accessible to few, and where there are no adequate educational plans: most adolescent girls experience severe physical and psychological conditions during their menstrual cycle, triggered by premenstrual syndrome and other symptoms, and many of them, feeling uncomfortable compared to their male classmates due to lack of access to adequate infrastructure, are forced to drop out of school in a very early age.

In India, many taboos and popular beliefs related to the menstrual cycle and its alleged impurity do not give due vent to an unmanageable situation and they do not do justice to all efforts made for a healthy awareness. This makes not possible to celebrate such an important day, so animatedly, for the people.

 

 

Picture 3: Indian activist holding a picket sign against shortage of hygiene products and facilities in Kolkata, Indiaduring 2019 Menstrual Hygiene Day Celebration

 

 

 

 

The aim for the Menstrual Hygiene Day remains the same and there is a wide agreement on what people need for good menstrual health: safe private spaces where to change often sanitary products, good facilities with access to running water to wash themselves and clean their hands as well as appropriate garbage bins where to throw sanitary pads and materials once used.

The purpose is also to ensure that schools and public places will be capable to guarantee those services, so that adolescent girls will be more likely to attend classes during their menstrual period with more comfort and dignity and with less worries.

During Menstrual Hygiene Day, many global and national development polices also take action to provide investments, in order to prioritize menstrual health and, so, to eliminate period poverty, that is, a condition in which low-income women struggle to get hygienical products as well as a fair access to running sanitized water and sanitation services.

 

 

Picture 4: A school with no water and toilets in Delhi, India, 2016

 

Considering that menstruation is a physiological process and that menstrual health is a basic and fundamental right which deals with the ability for women and girls to take care of their body in autonomy, comfort and dignity, we at HEEALS can do nothing but fully support this day and the efforts of all the people who mobilizee very year to build a self-sustainable society, as well as express our immense gratitude to them, as we believe that even the smallest effort can ultimately bring about great change

In the meanwhile, we continue to strive for reach the people from marginalized communities and women in need through education and through the donation of dignity kits containing essential products, as hand- cleaning soaps, hygienical and sanitary products products and supplies.

Email : communciations@heeals.org

Whatss app : +91-7982316660

 

 

 

 

World Toilet Day ! 19th November 2019

World Toilet Day, celebrated on 19th November every year, is about inspiring action to tackle the global sanitation crisis and help achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6, which promises sanitation for all by 2030.

Theme of World Toilet Day -2019 is Leaving no one behind.

A toilet is not just a toilet. It’s a life-saver, dignity-protector and opportunity-maker.

Whoever you are, wherever you are, sanitation is your human right. And yet, today, 4.2 billion people live without safely managed sanitation.

How can anyone lift themselves out of poverty without sanitation? We must expand access to safe toilets and leave no one behind.

Key Facts !

4.2 billion people live without safely managed sanitation – more than half the global population.

673 million people still practise open defecation worldwide.

Globally, at least 2 billion people use a drinking water source contaminated with faeces.

Inadequate sanitation is estimated to cause 432,000 diarrhoeal deaths every year and is a major factor in diseases such as intestinal worms and trachoma.

Children under the age of five living in countries affected by protracted conflict are, on average, nearly 20 times more likely to die from diarrhoeal diseases caused by a lack of safe water, sanitation and hygiene than by direct violence. (UNICEF )

"A Rising Need To Combat A Rising Population"

According to the live population counter, Worldometer, India’s population is currently at 1,355,853,093…094…095. Equivalent to 17.74% of the entire world population, it is expected that the population density would squeeze 1,180 people into each square mile.^[1] The second largest country in the world by population, it is worth discussing the importance of population in an Indian context, especially considering the burden that an exponentially growing population plays on the distribution of WASH facilities. This piece will reflect on population growth - what it is, how it began, why it is important, and how India can work to combat an exponentially growing population for the sake of a more sustainable planet.

 Population has been recognized as an issue worth addressing for decades now. There is even an annual recognition, World Population Day, first acknowledged on July 11th 1987. This was the day the global population reached 5 billion people. With a current global population of 7.6 billion, the need for an annual recognition of population growth has remained steadfast across the world. This year, the theme was “Family Planning is a Human Right.” ^[2]

Family planning became officially recognized as a human right in Article 16 of the Proclamation of Teheran, an International Conference on Human Rights held in Teheran, Iran, in 1968. Article 16 recognizes the right of parents to determine the number and spacing of their children, to chose when and how often to embrace parenthood (if at all), and the right of women to avoid depletion, exhaustion, and danger related to too many pregnancies.^[3] The UN Population Fund and the World Health organization recognizes nine standards to ensuring family planning is upheld as a human right: family planning must be non-discriminatory, available, accessible, acceptable, of good quality, participatory, accountable, involve informed decision making, and practice privacy/confidentiality.^[4]

Access to family planning is a serious concern on a global scale, and India is certainly not exempt. Currently, only 53.5% of married Indian women (aged 15-49) use family planning methods, and 12.9% of women specified an unmet need for family planning.^[5] The difference in these statistics shows that not only is family planning specifically inaccessible for 12.9% of the population, but the remaining 33.6% do not recognize a personal need for family planning resources at all. Furthermore, female sterilization is the primary contraceptive being used (75.3%); Lack of access to a reversible form of contraception could intimidate women from making the choice to engage in family planning.^[6]

And it shows. With a current population of 1.3 billion people - almost 18% of the global make-up - India’s population is estimated to surpass China’s by the year 2024.[1] And a growing population, as we all know, has detrimental effects on the environment, quality of life and access to resources on a global scale.

Take WASH, for example - an issue that HEEALS seeks to address in its project implementation. Ensuring that the massive Indian population has access to proper WASH resources - clean drinking water, private and accessible toilet facilities, soap for hand washing, etc. - has proven itself to be a challenge in and of itself. This becomes multiplied by a growing population, not simply because more people materialize in need of these resources. But a growing population shifts demographics, and consequentially, the type of resources needed.

George St J Perrott and Dorothy F Holland expand on this in their article, Population Trends and Problems of Public Health: “Alterations in age composition, internal migration of racial or industrial groups, changes in population density and urban-rural movement require current adaptation of the health program to solve the new problems thus created.”[2] A large population of children under the age of five exacerbates the issue of access to clean drinking water, as water-bourne diseases is the largest cause of death in India for children of this age group.[3] A large population of women of child-bearing age requires a focus on access to proper menstrual hygiene management resources, so as to avoid RTIs and other complications. So it is not just the issue of more people on this planet; Rather, the issue arises in giving an increasing number of people the resources needed to survive.

Yet, in the lecture “Why The World Population Won’t Exceed 11 Billion”, statistical analyst Hans Rosling offers an alternative way to regard population growth, and an accompanying solution that involves an increased focus on improving the health and quality of life for youth in developing countries. Rosling passionately states, “the poorest in Africa… they will not use contraceptives as long as they see their children dying, as long as there is no school in the village, as long as they need their children for work.”[4] Here, we see that the emphasis placed on access to family planning, incredibly important in and of itself, is not sufficient without ensuring that families will survive in the poorest of conditions.

So while the Indian government made its FP2020 commitment at the 2012 London Summit on Family Planning, an argument could be made for strengthening efforts to reduce WASH-related diseases - one of the leading causes of infant mortality in India.[5]

-Jayde 

Wash Intern Coordinator 

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^[1] https://www.nhp.gov.in/world-population-day_pg

^[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2690260/

^{[3] [3]} http://www.familyplanning2020.org/entities/76

^[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LyzBoHo5EI

^[5] http://www.familyplanning2020.org/entities/76

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^[1] http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/india-population/

^[2] https://www.nhp.gov.in/world-population-day_pg

^[3] https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Education/Training/Compilation/Pages/a)TheProclamationofTeheran(1968).aspx

^[4] https://www.nhp.gov.in/world-population-day_pg

^[5] http://rchiips.org/nfhs/pdf/NFHS4/India.pdf

^[6] http://www.familyplanning2020.org/entities/76