I was away at a summer camp when I got my first period. One of the youth facilitators supplied me with pads and showed me how to use them. My parents had never spoken with me about menstruation and it continued to catch me off guard.
Every month, I would stare down at my underwear in horror, stash them in a plastic bag, and hide it under my mattress. Within a matter of months, the plastic bag was full and I was running low on knickers. One day, my father, rummaging in my room, found my stash. He opened the bag, and he laughed at me. It was an ignorant, and unwarranted, act of cruelty. I felt humiliated and ashamed.
Menstruation-related stigma, shame and bullying is a worldwide problem that can cause girls to withdraw completely from society during their periods, impacting their rights to education and other opportunities. For girls living in contexts affected by conflict, the cost of living crisis, climate damage and acute food insecurity, the issue is even greater.
I recently conducted a global study to understand how these various crises are affecting girls’ access to menstrual products and water to maintain hygiene during their periods. The dire findings are drawn from interviews, case studies and survey responses by 168 experts across 44 countries.
Facing acute food insecurity due to decades of climate damage and rising commodity prices, many families prioritise food over menstrual health products. Girls displaced by conflict or extreme weather events have lost everything, including access to menstrual health products. Local water sources have dried up or become polluted as a result of climate damage. And it is adolescent girls who are paying the price.
Unable to access menstrual health products, adolescent girls either bleed freely, the blood running down their legs, or use makeshift materials such as old rags or torn clothing. The affront to girls’ dignity is compounded by chronic, painful lower reproductive tract infections that can lead to infertility and birth complications. Even without these added risks, adolescent pregnancy is the leading cause of death among girls aged 15—19 years.
In contexts where a girl’s first period marks her readiness for marriage, access to menstrual health products acts as a protective factor against child marriage by hiding her periods – and hence the expectation that she marry – from her parents. The reduced access to menstrual health products has, for many girls, increased the risk of child marriage – condemning them to a lifetime of physical, sexual and emotional abuse.
Lack of safe, dignified menstrual products is also among the main drivers of girls’ school absenteeism and dropout, undermining girls’ rights to an education, a key protective factor against child marriage. Still, what shook me most from the research was, in some locations, the lack of access to menstrual products is driving the sexual exploitation of girls in exchange for sanitary pads. At particular risk are girls whose parents are missing or deceased, as they need to manage their periods in order to work, especially if they are caring for younger siblings.
These findings do not solely reflect the menstrual health crisis of adolescent girls in international distressed and challenging contexts, they also incorporate the experiences of First Nations girls, right here in Australia. As with their global peers, First Nations girls are finding it harder to access menstrual health products amidst the rising cost of living. Girls living in remote communities face the additional burden of steep markups, with packets of sanitary pads selling at ten times the city prices. Yet, cruelly, they are unable to switch to washable pads and period panties due to extreme water scarcity. With food and other necessities taking priority, First Nations girls resort to makeshift materials such as socks to manage their periods, resulting in frequent lower infections.
Menstruation is not a choice. It is a healthy, natural and essential part of the human reproductive system that half of the population will experience, on average, once per month for 40 years of their lives. Periods don’t stop in times of conflict, climate damage, acute hunger or cost of living crises. On any given day, 300 million adolescent girls and women worldwide will be menstruating; their human dignity, and their rights to health, education and protection from sexual and gender-based violence, depend on access to safe, menstrual health products, along with safe access to clean water. These are necessities – not luxuries. No girls should be suffering monthly infections, forced into marriage or sexually exploited for lack of sanitary pads and clean water. Not in Australia. Not anywhere.
In the international arena, humanitarian organisations like Plan International Australia support girls’ menstrual health by distributing dignity kits (containing menstrual pads, soap, toilet paper) and combatting period-related stigma and shame. In Australia, every State and Territory now has legislation mandating free menstrual health products be available in all public schools, ensuring girls don’t miss out on school due to period poverty. Victoria is set to roll out a wider program of free menstrual health products in all public places such as courts, libraries, train stations and public hospitals.
Yet much more can, and should, be done. Such as prioritising adolescent girls in Australia’s foreign aid budget and increasing funding for adolescent girls’ menstrual health, sexual and reproductive health and protection from gender-based violence – especially in crisis settings. Such as enacting Federal legislation requiring free menstrual health products in all public spaces. Such as ensuring women and girls in remote First Nations communities are not left behind, and have access to free menstrual health products and to physically accessible and affordable clean water. Such as rolling out a public health campaigns to educate about and destigmatise periods.
Maybe then, girls will no longer suffer the indignity of being mocked for hiding their bloody knickers under the mattress – or worse.