How COVID-19 impacted menstrual hygiene in India's rural and semi-urban regions

New Delhi, Feb 16 The response to Covid-19 pandemic has not really been gender-neutral. Across India, in the past one year, periods did not stop for the pandemic but access to period products and menstrual hygiene did, especially for socioeconomically challenged families.

Lack of gender-sensitive response in the lockdown, and issues of accessibility, affordability and awareness have further magnified it, Pratibha Pandey, Senior Health Specialist, ChildFund India tells life.

Access scarcity

Access to safe menstrual products and sanitation were overlooked during the lockdown, as girls and women from the rural areas who relied on free or subsidized products from government centers or NGOs, had little or no access to the same.

"Many of migrant workers, who walked several miles from the cities where they worked, to their native villages were women. Some of these women had to go days on the national highways, menstruating with only a light cloth to manage the same. They had no access to hygiene products or washrooms and their plight was truly horrifying. Medical shops in densely populated urban areas with low-income families reported absence of affordable sanitary products," she says.

"Period poverty is a very real concept in India. According to a March 2020 report of the Ministry of Health, majority of menstruating females in India are largely dependent on unsafe sanitary materials like rags, cloth, hay, sand, and ash as their only alternatives," Pandey says.

The lockdown forced many girls and women to resort to the age-old unhygienic practice of using a cloth during menses. "A shocking 84 per cent of women had restricted or no access to sanitary napkins. Only after intervention from several groups championing the cause of women, Ajay Bhalla, the Home Secretary to India instructed the states to add sanitary napkins to the list of essential items on the March 29, 2020

( With inputs from IANS )