Women Lobby Groups Now Want Allocation for Menstrual Health Increased

John Kariuki

Women lobby groups Are now calling for an increase in governments allocation towards the provision of sanitary towels to girls.

The women rights organization led by Superb CBO want the government to also ensure that all girls at puberty have access to menstrual products and information

“Menstrual health has become a very important component in a woman’s life. Women and girls need to be taught on how to manage themselves when they experience menstruation. Both local and International organizations, National and County government and the community needs to facilitate menstrual health management. This is by ensuring they get adequate and relevant knowledge and information on menstrual health management, access to quality sanitary towels and other basic necessity like undergarments and access to clean water,” said Superb CEO Yasmin Mohamed observed,

Full Statement

Superb CBO in partnership with CREAW, Woman beyond borders, Feminist for Peace Rights and Justice Centre, Kibera unite against crime, Kibera community emergency response team, Inua Dada Foundation, Wasanii Sanaa, Women human rights defenders hub, Amani Kibera, MAD sisters, Nikkofitti Zumba, Unicorn girls resource centre, Together for better foundation working on sexual and reproductive health and rights are joining efforts during this World Menstrual Hygiene Day 2022 to highlight challenges menstruators are going through and share concrete recommendations in live in dignity and free from stigma and shame.

The national government under the national government affirmative action fund is mandated to distribute free sanitary towels nationwide to adolescent girls who are enrolled at public schools.

The basic education fund act was also signed by the president and it states that this towels and dignity kitties be issued for free.

However, the sanitary towels do not reach out at grassroots level. And as a result girls and women are forced to access them through unsafe ways. They engage in transactional sexual activities, intergenerational partners and hard Labour in order to access sanitary towels.

CEO Yasmin added, “65% of women and girls can’t access sanitary towels and surprisingly members of parliament slashed the current budget for sanitary towels from 470M to 260M. We strongly condemn this decision and challenge the members of parliament to review and increase the budget allocation.

It is now time to ensure that we end all unsafe means of accessing sanitary towels because of high alarming increasing rate of HIV/AIDS, teenage pregnancies, early marriages, school dropout, unsafe street abortion which later leads to high maternal deaths.”

In the informal settlements, we need to think about the environment and health aspect too. The environment is not friendly as there’s shortage of water, lack of access to clean water and sanitation which causes diseases and, in this regards, girls and women end up getting infections which is very dangerous to their health.