NOMSA NKANA, Lusaka
IT IS not a myth that many women and girls in rural and peri-urban areas of Zambia lack access to menstrual hygiene management (MHM) materials and necessary facilities to manage their menstrual health.
This lack of access to menstrual hygiene products at school and at home is compounded by a plurality of factors.
The factors range from little knowledge, wrong beliefs about menstruation, economic challenges faced by households, and lack of access to affordable, available, alternative sanitary pads, often resulting in what is known as period poverty.
According to the Royal College of Nursing, period poverty is the lack of access to sanitary products due to financial constraints. This can be caused by a wide range of life events that negatively impact on a girl or woman’s ability to access sanitary products to manage a most intimate and regular natural occurrence in her life.
Period poverty has negative impacts on health, education, gender equality, and productivity as girls are forced to drop out of school due to CLICK TO READ MORE