Access to complete menstrual health and hygiene is a basic human right. Without it, women and girls cannot pursue full lives with dignity and confidence. It is deeply unfair that girls in all parts of the world miss out on better education and opportunities because they were too poor to have a period. We have neglected this issue for too long.
What’s clear, is the need to unite the international community on global standards for reducing period poverty, and better fund those programmes that deliver the highest impact for women and girls who every month have to choose between a meal or a sanitary pad.
I invite the international community to join me and work together to end period poverty.
Dominika Kulczyk, President of the Kulczyk Foundation
If a government says: we’ll give you free sanitary pads, it’s really saying: girls are important.
Your pelvis is too small, the baby is too big or incorrectly positioned – you will find out about this long before giving birth, in a comfortable clinic. Millions of women learn this when labour begins. And then, mutilated and smelly, they end up in the street.
“You can really effectively combat pain and heavy bleeding during menstruation, to make sure that this time is not lost, or does not lead to absences from school or work. The hygiene products that women have at their disposal also help in this.” An interview with a gynaecologist, Hanna Szweda, MD