 |
| Effect of Menstruation on Girls and their Education |
Many myths and taboos still hover around menstruation and lead to negative attitudes towards this normal phenomenon and woman experiencing it. After menarche, girls are faced with the challenges related to management of menstruation (WHO and UNICEF 2013). World Bank statistics highlight shows absence of approximately 4 days every 4 weeks (World Bank, 2015). There are usually difficulties in measuring absenteeism and its causes especially when linked to menstruation. There are differing opinions on the impact of lack of menstrual hygiene in Nepal. It was reported that menstruation has a very small impact on school attendance, estimating that girls miss a total of 0.4% days in 180days of a school year, while improved sanitary technology had no effect on reducing this small gap (Oster and Thornton, 2010). In a randomized study, girls who used menstrual cup were no less likely to miss school during menstruation.
In a study in Ghana, 120 girls between the age of 12 and 18 were enrolled in a non-randomized trial of sanitary pad provision with education. These girls either receive puberty education alone, puberty education and sanitary pads or nothing (the control group). After 3 months, providing pads with education significantly improved attendance for a similar level. The total improvement through pads with education intervention after five months was a 9% increase in attendance. Though the study was small-scaled, it indicated that puberty education even if accompanied by menstrual hygiene materials can have an impact on education. A larger scale cluster randomized trial to confirm the findings of the study has begun but its data is not currently available (Montgomety et al., 2012).
Despite the difficulties in measuring girls’ school attendance during menses, both girls and parents confirm it is a common habit for girls to stay at home during at least some days of their monthly menstruation (Mcmahon, 2011). Existing qualitative study concluded that full engagement of girls in school activities is negatively affected, with many girls reporting that they stay at home during school days due to menstrual cramp, insufficient menstrual hygiene materials, inadequate water and sanitation facilities in schools and fear of menstrual accident (Sommer and Ackatin, 2012). Additionally, some girls also avoid standing up to answer teacher’s questions because of over leakage or smell and discomfort or they hesitate to write on the blackboard for fair of menstrual accidents and others seeing them stained which cause shame and embarrassment (Kimmira, 2014).
No comments:
Post a Comment