Farah Ahamed (ed.) - Period Matters: Menstruation in South Asia

Introduction: Panties with Purpose
FARAH AHAMED

I Carry My Uterus in a Small Suitcase
TISHANI DOSHI

Menstrual Matters
SHASHI DESHPANDE

Hot Mango Chutney Sauce
FARAH AHAMED

Kotahalu Mangalya : Menstruation Traditions and Practices in Sri Lanka
ZINTHIYA GANESHPANCHAN

Raqs-e-Mahvaari: A Menstrual Dance
AMNA MAWAZ KHAN

The Christian Women Sweepers of Lahore
AYRA INDRIAS PATRAS

What If
FARAH AHAMED

An Activists Fight for Dignified Menstruation in Nepal
RADHA PAUDEL

Periods Are Never Easy: Coping with Menstruation in Afghanistan
MARIAM SIAR

Plea for a Safe Haven
VICTORIA PATRICK; TR. AMNA MAWAZ KHAN

My Menstrual Rights Bill: Awakening a Nation
SHASHI THAROOR

Right to Bleed at the Workplace
RADHIKA RADHAKRISHNAN

Behind the Braided Coconut Leaves
K. MADAVANE, TR. SIBA BARKATAKI

Red Nectar of the Sacred Lotus: A Buddhist Perspective on Menstruation
TASHI ZANGMO

Aadya Shakti, or Primal Energy
LYLA FREECHILD

Increased Period Poverty during Covid-19 in Lahore, Pakistan
AYRA INDRIAS PATRAS

Advice for Pliny the Elder, Big Daddy of Mansplainers
TISHANI DOSHI

Menstruation in Fiction: The Authorial Gaze
FARAH AHAMED

A Caregivers Perspective on Managing Menstrual Hygiene
AYRA INDRIAS PATRAS

Digitizing Menstruation: Algorithms for Cleansing Bodies
ALNOOR BHIMANI

What Has Dignity Got to Do with Menstrual Health?
MEERA TIWARI

Anguish of the Unveiled
VICTORIA PATRICK; TR. AMNA MAWAZ KHAN

Memory and Imagination: Reclaiming Menstruation
SIBA BARKATAKI

Sowing the Seeds of a Menstrual Revolution: The First Menstrual Workshop in Balochistan
GRANAZ BALOCH

Hormo-baha : Flower of the Body
SRILEKHA CHAKRABORTY

Homa Istrizia Azan Asan : Our Women Are Free
FARAH AHAMED

Hothousing: Embracing Menopause at Thirty-seven
LISA RAY

FARAH AHAMED

MY INTEREST IN THE PROBLEMS FACED BY GIRLS DURING menstruation goes back twenty years, to the time when I was working in East Africa with the Aga Khan Foundation, overseeing their development projects. The Straight Talk Foundation in Uganda sponsored a newspaper supplement focused on raising awareness about HIV/AIDS, reproductive health and child rights, which was published every Friday. It was then that I read how underprivileged girls and women in Uganda managed their menstrual health. Even though I had been working at the grassroots level, that menstrual hygiene management was a problem had never occurred to me before. I had not heard of girls missing school because of a lack of access to menstrual products, poor sanitation and inadequate toilet facilities before this. I was shocked to realize that while the privileged enjoyed the luxury of choice in menstrual products, the poor had none. After that, it took ten years for the idea of taking action to ferment and develop into a concrete plan.

In 2011, my two sisters and I established an informal initiative called Panties with Purpose. Our objective was to promote menstrual health and raise awareness about the detrimental effects of girls in Kenya missing as many as sixty days of school a year because of a lack of access to menstrual products. This was damaging their chances for academic success and compromising their health and well-being. Through our first event, a one-day reproductive health workshop, we aimed to help 1,000 girls and give them underpants and pads.

Our strategy was simple: we would ask donors to give us new cotton underpants. Our reasoning was that if a donor bought a pair of underpants instead of donating cash, they would be more likely to talk about period poverty with their friends. Also, as we were not a registered NGO or a charity, this approach would make it easier for us to manage our operations.

What started as a discussion with family and friends soon spread farther, and we had strangers writing to tell us that they were hosting parties and asking their guests to contribute to our initiative. Organizations reached out saying they were including Panties with Purpose in their corporate social responsibility budget. Schools and colleges in Canada, Australia and the UK told us they were engaging their students in menstrual health debates, with one of them even hosting a menstruation awareness concert where the entry ticket was a packet of pads or underpants. Our target was 4,000 pairs of underpants. Each girl was to receive four pairs, but over the course of two months, we received over 40,000 pairs from sixty cities including Toronto, Mumbai, Sydney and Hong Kong. These were then transported to Kenya with the help of friends and a donation from Virgin Atlantic. Later, in a school in Kibera, Google sponsored our first-ever event on International Womens Day in 2011.

Since then, Panties with Purpose has reached over 16,000 girls and distributed more than 55,000 pairs of underpants and nearly as many pads. Through partnerships with community-based organizations, it has sponsored health education and skills-training workshops across 160 locations in Kenya. These include schools, hospitals, marketplaces, orphanages, prisons and shelters for the homeless and those living with HIV. Additionally, Panties with Purpose has engaged with organizations working in the area of menstrual health and developing environmentally friendly sanitary pad options using local materials such as sisal. We have lobbied for period-friendly schools and workplaces, the distribution of free sanitary pads in schools as well as the removal of the tampon tax. It became evident over these years that menstruation cut across every area of life.

It has been particularly encouraging to witness the gradual but perceptible difference in attitude throughout our network of organizations. For instance, the Kenya-based Ramgarhia Youth Sikh Association, after some initial ambivalence, has now included menstrual products as part of the care packages they send to help the poor around the country. Moreover, younger people are becoming increasingly involved in bringing about change. In Nairobi, my eleven-year-old-niece and her friends speak openly in assembly at their co-ed school about the challenges of period poverty in Kenya. They also regularly raise funds with the help of their peers, with the aim of providing a less fortunate school with a menstrual hygiene workshop, pads and underpants. For boys and girls in school to speak freely about periods and also take an active part in helping another school is a big step forward.

Between 2017 and 2019, while travelling through India and Pakistan, I spoke to girls and women about menstruation and learned about their local values and practices. While some stories were universal and similar to those I had encountered in East Africa, others were specific to their context. While living on the campus of a university in Lahore, I asked female faculty and students about pervasive cultural notions that periods were shameful. In 2019, with the help of a local arts organisation, SAMAAJ, we hosted the first period poverty conference in Pakistan titled Everybodys Business, Period. The discussions ranged from menstruation and disability to period-friendly schools and workplaces, to entrepreneurship endeavours. After that, it took three years of persistent efforts to make the university period-friendly. When I lobbied the senior administration to install vending machines with menstrual products in the womens hostels, the excuses I received included: Refilling the vending machines will require male staff to enter the hostels. We cant allow it; The machines will have to be ordered from China and take many months to come, its too complicated; The washrooms dont have enough space and the women are coping, so whats the need for this? and finally, The machines will be rarely used, it makes no commercial sense. There was little understanding and compassion towards supporting women during menstruation.