#Bucket4GirlsHygiene campaign , a campaign that seeks to raise awareness about Menstrual Hygiene management and also mobilize resources to support over 4000 girls in the rural communities in Lango sub-region to buy buckets, panties, pads to support girls and enhance their personal menstrual hygiene management so we do not leave any girl behind in MHM .
The guns may be silent but girls in lira in northern uganda continue to suffer from Period poverty as many of the girls and their parents or care takers are unable to afford to buy sanitary products like pads, panties, buckets for girl’s menstrual management due to financial constraints. According to Plan International, in Uganda 28% of girl’s miss school because they are menstruating simply because they cannot afford or access the menstrual management products.
For many girls in rural areas in lira, lack of financial resources and inaccurate knowledge about menstrual hygiene management (MHM) continues to be a great hindrance to personal menstrual hygiene management and as a result, for the girls who can afford a pad or a panty, they wear the same pad for the whole day because they cannot afford to buy enough pads to use and change as required. One panty is used for all the days of menstruation simply because they do not have panties that can be changed on a daily, for most girls they do not even own a panty at all and they just put wrap a rag that they use and because their movements are constrained, they are locked at home as “prisoners of menstruation”, with nowhere to go during their menstrual period.
Period poverty continues to force girls in rural communities to use pads or filthy clothes for excessive lengths of time and as a result most girls have experienced increased reproductive tract infections caused due to lack of access to menstrual products for personal hygiene during menstruation time.
Girls in rural communities continue to face period poverty because they cannot buy pads, soap, or panties to help them during their periods let alone own or access a personal bucket to help them wash their panties or bath because even these cost about 6 or 7 dollars respectively. For most girls this is not an option because it is not a priority for the parents and guardians. for orphaned girls, this is not even something they think or dream about because they do not see any one ever providing this for them.
A bucket could be something you think would be cheap and easy to access but for most of the girls, this is not as cheap as it seems, let alone sharing a basin with men and boys as menstruation is considered a taboo because men and boys continue to tag girls as dirty, smelly during their menses, so sharing a basin is not an option as well. This for the girls has a been a tough experience because they end up spending days without washing their panties, wearing the same pad for the whole day or and not even think of bathing because they do not own their own buckets which they can freely use at any time.
Yes, most organization are providing pads but they are forgetting to provide panties, soap and buckets for the girl’s use.
With the additional challenges of COVI-19, Most of the parents are only prioritizing buying food for their family other than buying sanitary towels during the lockdown hence forcing girls to get into early relationships with local business men or boda boda riders who “promise” to provide girls with sanitary towels and in return lure them into sexual intercourse. This has contributed to increased number of early pregnancies and early marriages in the Lango districts. According to the statistics from the Health System Monitoring Information the following statistics were registered teenage pregnancies of young girls between the ages of 13 – 24 years: 5,363 adolescents in Adyel Division, 594 in lira sub-county, 516 in Adeokwok, 47 in Ojwina some of the sub-communities respectively.
As a community Menstruation and menstrual practices still face many social, cultural, and religious restrictions which are a big barrier in the path of menstrual hygiene management for rural girls. Menstrual is supposed to be the pride of every girl but for most rural girls it is a harrowing experience.
This month of May , as the world prepares to celebrate the Menstrual Hygiene management Day on 28th May 2021, Foundation for Integrated Rural Development https://fird-ug.org/ is running a #Bucket4GirlsHygiene campaign , a campaign that seeks to raise awareness about Menstrual Hygiene management and also mobilize resources to support over 4000 girls in the rural communities in Lango sub-region to buy buckets, panties, pads to support girls and enhance their personal menstrual hygiene management so we do not leave any girl behind in MHM .