Why Periods Become A Vulnerability For Women Living In Slums

Indian urban slum dwellers and the urban poor make up a heterogeneous group with differing levels of deprivation and vulnerability. The situation is so common that one in every six urban Indians lives in slums.

In Andhra Pradesh, 36.1 % of its urban population has been living in slums. Nine out of every ten slum households in Odisha are either without a drainage connection or connected to an open drain (making the population more vulnerable to diseases).

Even though cities have many resources, such as clean water, sanitation, and waste disposal systems, they are often accessible to only a small portion of the population, excluding hundreds of millions of people of their fundamental rights.

Health Starts From Toilets

For women to live healthy, productive, and dignified lives, they need to manage their menstrual cycles effectively. The scenario is possible with access to running water and clean and hygienic toilets. If no appropriate facilities are available, they revert to open defecation and seek railway tracks and municipal dumps under cover of night, as in Mumbai.

The concept of sharing washrooms by multiple households is increasing in urban slums in which women are not comfortable and face issues. The male-dominated engineering and planning may fail to account for the needs of the women. The toilets mostly face the street with no place to dispose of menstrual waste.

When Disposal Is A Problem

There is also a practice seen of disposing of menstrual waste into pit latrines. Disposing into the toilet is also done because women do not want men to see the “blood-soaked cloth/sanitary pad” seen as symbols of witchcraft. But as sanitation systems are not designed to flush sanitary pads, they are unable to cope with them and end up clogging the sewage pipes.

WaterAid India found that women who have access to toilets refrained from using them during their periods due to the fear of staining them. While in some communities, women, and girls are not allowed to use water sources during menstruation. Our country lacks the necessary facilities for menstruating women to handle menstrual hygiene, especially in slum areas.

In a community in the state of Gujarat, 91% of girls reported staying away from flowing water during menstruation. Although managing menstruation requires access to water and sanitation facilities, cultural beliefs and silence that surrounds it results in unhealthy situations for those who menstruate.

The Impact On Women’s Health Living In Urban Slums

There is a clear link between poor menstrual hygiene and urinary tract infections and other illnesses. When women have no access to toilet facilities, they routinely withhold food and water, which subsequently leads to dehydration, discomfort, and urinary tract infections.

Incidences of reproductive tract infections (RTI) are more common amongst women who use unhygienic materials during menstruation. There is an upfront problem when women are not able to practice hygiene-related behaviour such as bathing and cleaning of genitals. This leads to worry, fear, and anxiety. In India, the women have expressed concern of sexual assault due to broken latch or absent doors on shared toilets.

The widespread “Stay Home Stay Safe” message had urged people to stay indoors in the pandemic situation. But it failed for many families in the slums. Families faced the issue of not having the means to earn for food, limited access to water and no toilets in their houses.

“Neither do we have money to buy sanitary napkins, nor can we get them in shops as they are closed since the lockdown. We have to use cloth rags for periods,” expressed Gurubari Digi, a young married woman in Biruasa slum in the western part of Bhubaneswar city.

She further states “It is tough to wash the period rags. For a bucket of water, I have to toil for 30 minutes – 10 minutes each to walk to and from the stand post and at least 10 minutes to wait in the queue. And to wash a used period cloth, it requires at least two buckets of water,” she mentioned. This makes MHM in times of crisis even more difficult.

The period does not stop in a pandemic situation. Looking at these challenges, the Supreme Court had asked the governments to provide basic necessities like water, sanitation, and hygiene facilities in these areas. It is yet to be seen how the various governments will step up to relieve these women of their burdens.

The author is a part of the current batch of the #PeriodParGyan Writer’s Training Program