In the late months of the year 2010, Nielsen AC holdings, along with the endorsement of Plan India, conducted a survey. It famously declared that only 12% of the menstruating population of India uses sanitary napkins while the other 88% uses old fabric bags, old newspapers, fly ash or even sawdust which lead to a range of reproductive tract infections.
This number played a considerable role in raising awareness about the lack of awareness surrounding menstrual products. Even ten years later and with new data present, this percentage is thrown around to generate shock value by picking the lowest number possible amongst other similar existing surveys.
The relatively newer and larger-scale study conducted from 2015 to 2016 by the National Family Health Survey concluded that about 58% of women use some form of sanitary napkins. Do they see the difference? A far more extensive study came to a number almost quintuple that of the initial.
A poorly conducted research or a survey with an undiversified pool can lead to a highly inaccurate outcome. Exposure to an erroneous survey might cause a state of confusion and poor decision making along with underestimating the extent of knowledge possessed by the communities in question.
Debunking The Myth
How did the initial survey result in such a low and now proven inaccurate number? The answer lies in the maths. Don’t worry; it’s not going to be boring. Data on SurveyMonkey states that to have a reasonably successful survey, which will help us understand our population better, we would need 97 people per million people, which is with a 10% margin of error.
In India, we have a menstruating population of about 336 million. By this calculation, we would need about 32,000 candidates to conduct a reasonably accurate survey (with a 10% margin of error, and around 3 million women if we need a 1% margin of error).
But, the “12%” survey involved only 1033 women in the menstruating age. Therefore the survey consulted every 1 in 325,266 women, and naturally, this provided us with a giant error. After all, studies depend on the region, age, education level, family environment, etc. So how can an analysis be accurate when the participant pool itself is biased?
To understand a problem is to learn how many people are being affected by the said problem and allocate sufficient resources accordingly. Education and provision go hand in hand. A 2012 study conducted by Indian Council for Medical Research found that less than 38% of menstruating girls spoke to their mothers about it.
A 2015 survey conducted by the Ministry of Education found that in about 63% of schools, the teachers themselves never taught girls about periods. More than 60% of adolescent girls reported their schools as not having a proper method of disposal of sanitary products; in rural areas, only 2-3% of females are estimated to be using sanitary pads regularly.
This is why it’s no surprise that 23 Million girls drop out of school once their period starts, annually. A study stated that while 80% of rural India women knew about sanitary napkins, only 30% used it regularly. This is because pads are way too expensive for them, and this leads them to use other alternatives, which are clothes.
Cloth pads are sustainable and eco friendly. Many urban women also use cloth pads as standard sanitary pads can cause rashes and burden the environment. Cloth pads shouldn’t be shared between family members, but that’s precisely what is happening in India’s parts.
Meenakshi Sharma, the coordinator for Menstrual Hygiene Management, WASH Alliance, says that “It has been seen in rural areas that two-three women of the same family use the same cloth during menstruation, after washing and drying it. This is extremely unhealthy and brings numerous health risks. Sanitary napkins are a luxury in rural areas and small towns. Even if available, women are discouraged from spending on sanitary napkins as old clothes or sand is thought to be good enough for something ‘dirty’ like menstruation“.
Although women all around have learned about sanitary products and sustainable versions of them, we still have a long way to go about providing them safer and more hygienic periods by encouraging them to not be shy about the questions they might have about their experiences and making sure they know what a healthy period and a healthy vagina looks like.