Period poverty is a reality in India. Many pad bank initiatives are helping to reduce the instances of period poverty by making pads accessible to the underprivileged women.
Women always have to face the dual brunt of menstruation. There is the period pain and the taboo around the subject. But for the majority of the population, period poverty is the main issue.
The term period poverty is unknown to the general public. It means the lack of accessible and affordable period products available in the market for women.
Although amongst all the period products, the menstrual cup is considered to be the most affordable and sustainable one.
However, most women are scared to use menstrual cups as it involves insertion. Secondly, menstrual cups require sterilization and cleaning with water, which many homeless women will not have access to.
Well, one can hope the period products are affordable and available for free in the market. It is a necessity and should be levied with the Pink Tax.
Many civil society organizations, NGOs, and government bodies are putting the effort to reduce period poverty.
In 2018, Dr Bharati Lavekar, an MLA from the Versova constituency of Mumbai started the Tee Foundation Sanitary Pad Bank to ensure that women from the urban slums and marginalized communities have access to pads.
Dr Lavekar said, “Only 15 percent women get access to pads, because they either cannot afford them or lack awareness. As many as 70 percent women think menstrual blood is unhygienic and 66 percent girls and women manage periods without toilets.”
The statistics of period poverty are indeed appalling.
Over 85 percent of women, who menstruate use unsafe materials, resort to traditional unhygienic practices like cloth, ashes, husk, sand and leaves. And over 23 percent girls drop out of school completely after reaching puberty. All these facts have major repercussions, which we need to change with the use of and up gradation of technology through innovative solutions and awareness.
The organization started a pad bank where individuals can donate surplus pads, pain killers, period kits, heat bags to provide relief to underprivileged women in Versova.
The initiative has been carried forward through an automatic vending machine to distribute the period products. In addition to eliminate period poverty, Tee foundation also advocates on having a sensitive setup in schools and workplaces to grant period leaves. It also aims to scale up their on-going project by developing disposable pad machines.
In August 2021, Finance Minister Nirmala Sithamaran in collaboration with NABARD has begun a mobile pad bank project to improve the menstrual hygiene conditions of rural women. It makes pads accessible by a mobile van atm at a low cost.
The My Pad My Right project is enabling the self help groups to mitigate the problem of period poverty at a community level.
This grassroot initiative by NABARD will provide women, wages for fifty days and entrepreneurial support by providing raw materials for two months. The women in the self help groups are trained.
These pad bank projects are indeed what the society needs. But, period poverty is more than just accessibility to period products. Women need to have access to clean water and privacy to maintain their menstrual hygiene in privacy. When these three components are made accessible, period poverty can end in India.
More than grassroots initiatives, there should a national gender budgeting provisions to allocate funds for alleviating period poverty in the country. Schools, colleges, workplace, and even the unorganized sector should have access to clean water and toilets for women.
Individual households must give their domestic help period products and paid period leaves so that menstruation is not taxing on their livelihood.
Pad vending machines should be placed in all public spaces to make them accessible to homeless women.
The rural and urban divide of period poverty is also big and can be eliminated with behavior change interventions and education around menstruation.
Also, tell us your opinions about how individual efforts can also reduce period poverty. For more such content, join the Fuzia community today or simply Download our App.