The popular narrative of rural India regarding menstrual health has always been that of a backward region. An area of uneducated people with the unavailability of sanitary products, using the same old traditional methods and blindly following the stereotypes attached to it. It is surprising how people tend to make assumptions on the image of another person based on the geographical region they stay in.
These days, the word ‘rural’ is misinterpreted to an extent that it is often thought to be clingy with ‘backwardness’ as a shadow, an inseparable part of it. Therefore, to disrupt that perception, we would present to you a completely different side of our rural regions which would make you rethink the definition of it.
Women from the rural areas of Kerala, Gujarat, Assam and Bangalore have come out in huge numbers in support of more sustainable and eco-friendly sanitary products to manage menstrual waste. Over 500 women in Muhamma, a village in Kerala’s Alappuzha district, have renounced the use of synthetic sanitary napkins and switched to menstrual cups.
ATREE, a non-profit organization in collaboration with the gram panchayat, is focusing towards making Muhamma India’s first sanitary pad-free region. What makes this initiative even more remarkable is that it is being achieved in one of those areas where 25% of the menstruators still use cloth because of the taboos associated with it.
In Gujarat, Ashwini Rajkumar an engineering graduate, with the help of government centres like Anganwadi and other NGOs, is helping the women from underprivileged sections of the society. They conduct workshops to make them understand the concept of menstruation and why it happens. They are training adolescent girls to make sanitary pads and selling them at a low cost, becoming a source of income for these women and making these sustainable products reach a large mass at the same time.
In the Pamohi village of Assam, Uttam Teron and Aimoni Tumung of Parijat Academy are nudging villagers towards menstrual hygiene and switching towards reusable sanitary products. They conducted public gatherings to discuss the issues of health and hygiene and distribute free samples of usable sanitary products. The villagers are then further encouraging other people into menstrual hygiene.
In villages around Bangalore, they are following a chain where 10 women of the village inspire 80 more to switch to reusable cloth pads or menstrual cups. These organisations work extensively by conducting workshops to break the social stigma, fight the shyness and misinformation about the topics affecting the physical, social and mental health of women.
Why Is There A Need For Change?
Women in rural India stick to the traditional method of using cloth during menstruation due to the inability to afford them and the challenges of its disposal. The frequent washing of the cloth and not getting exposed to proper sunlight can lead to urinary and reproductive tract infection. Using unhygienic old cloth and challenges of disposal of used sanitary pads makes them stick to the cloth option. However, cloth pads have now come out as a hygienic and eco-friendly option, but only if used in proper environmentally hygienic conditions.
With the challenges and taboos associated around menstruation, the sanitary waste usually gets disposed off to the forests or near the lake in the rural areas, resulting in polluting the environment and emerging as a danger for the animals. According to Menstrual Hygiene Alliance of India (MHAI), approximately 121 million women use disposable sanitary napkins in India. This would mean heaps of synthetic pads lying around us for 500-800 years.
Therefore, to stop this, we need to introduce sustainable and eco-friendly options like using menstrual cups in our lifestyle. These cups are long-lasting, reusable, with no worries of problems like rashes or bacterial infection.
Change Might Be Slow, But It Is Significant
It is the awareness about a topic and a push in the right direction that one needs to set as an example for everyone. While extremities in action exist everywhere be it a rural or urban area, the process of learning could come from anywhere. The women of Muhamma and other villages have shown some exemplary responsibility and determination towards their body and the environment.
It is such villages that have changed the perception of people in viewing the rural regions in a backward light. They urge us to rethink about it too. These villages have the capability of bringing out a revolution.