• Global South Coalition for Dignified Menstruation Founder Radha Paudel on the need to break the silence on the taboo topic

A first period can be a confusing and scary moment for menstruators, and despite the knowledge one is equipped with before starting to menstruate, a child’s perspective about menstruation and their bodies is shaped by that first sighting of blood and the support they need and receive at the time. For Radha Paudel, a Nepali activist who recently visited Sri Lanka to talk about dignified menstruation, her first period did not lead to a positive reaction.

Paudel, in conversation with The Daily Morning, shared that the four decades she has spent on the campaign went back to a seven-year-old Paudel fighting about the need for dignified menstruation after feeling shocked about the menstrual blood she saw on her mother’s leg.

“I started to rebel by leaving home and attempting suicide, and when I was 15 years old, I went to nursing college. I learnt about menstruation and the importance of it, and since then, I have been speaking publicly about dignified menstruation,” Paudel said.

In 2019, she founded the Global South Coalition for Dignified Menstruation, which has gone on to establish International Dignified Menstruation Day on 8 December. The theme this year is “Dignified menstruation is integral for ending sexual violence and child marriage”.

Paudel’s visit to Sri Lanka last month wasn’t her first and is unlikely to be her last. While in Sri Lanka, the Nepali activist was involved in programmes organised by the Viluthu Centre for Human Resource Development, World Bank, and Shanthi Maargam.

Speaking to The Daily Morning, Paudel explained that dignified menstruation was an umbrella term that covered taboo, stigma, discrimination, and abuse and one that could strengthen women’s opportunities and recognition in and beyond the household. “We need dignified menstruation for equal power relations and to dismantle the patriarchy,” she said, adding that the Global North must listen to and acknowledge the Global South’s leadership.

Following are excerpts from the interview:

Tell us about your recent visit to Sri Lanka.

Viluthu has been working around dignified menstruation since 2019. Their Head of Programmes Inthumathy Hariharathamotharan is a founding member of the Global South Coalition for Dignified Menstruation, and since last year, has been a steering committee member. Viluthu has been working in more than 10 districts around dignified menstruation.

I have been teaching the campaigners and activists through digital means, and last year, when we marked the fourth International Dignified Menstruation Day, Viluthu hosted a one-day conference on dignified menstruation to end child marriage.

It is with this background that I came to Sri Lanka during the first week of July and during this time, I engaged in a couple of meetings. For example, I had a two-hour interaction with the World Bank team in Sri Lanka, looking at how and why dignified menstruation is a tool for gender equality and prevention of gender-based violence (GBV). We also had a half-day interaction with Shanthi Maargam, and a four-day training for Viluthu trainers, where participants came from 10 districts. We also went to Puttalam to organise a training on reusable pad making. There were 31 women training in this programme.

Wherever we engaged, the group was very diverse in terms of education, religion, and socioeconomic conditions. In many ways, it was fantastic that the Global South Coalition for Dignified Menstruation got the opportunity to amplify the voice around dignified menstruation. It was fantastic that we interacted with ground-level activists, and we really bonded emotionally.

What I want to share is that regardless of the location or the organisation, what we saw was that menstrual discrimination is very hidden. No one speaks about it, and there is a very deep silence and ignorance.

For us, Sri Lanka is developed. It has a high literary rate for women. We always see Sri Lanka as a model country, but even when I visited in 2011, I knew that menstrual discrimination was not spoken about at all in the country.

Given the need for these conversations, can you tell us what exactly menstrual discrimination is?

Menstrual discrimination is an umbrella term and includes taboos, silence, stigma, abuse, and discrimination from resources and services associated with menstruation throughout the lifecycle of menstruators in all diversities. It’s not limited to the five days of bleeding. It’s not only about the pad. We examine menstrual practices holistically. We look at the power construct and the patriarchal construct as a result of menstrual discrimination.

We did studies on this across all groups. Between 6-9 years, children knew something about menstruation and felt scared, nervous, shocked, or confused, regardless of gender. Later, even before menstruating, girls started to learn from their mothers, sisters, and friends about it and what to do and what not to do. The boys started to then think they were pure, strong, and privileged because they didn’t menstruate. This is how the power and patriarchy construct is built.

Menstrual discrimination is very complex and multifaceted, so it needs a holistic approach. It is somewhat invisible, and we observe deep silence and ignorance around it. Many people still consider menstrual blood as dirty or impure – even educated people. And there are restrictions, like not being able to eat certain food, touch older people, engage in religious activities, or even water flowers.

During the first menstruation, they need to be confined in a single room, usually for seven days. And during this first menstruation, the entire family is sometimes considered impure and is not allowed to participate in social or religious activities.

There is also a big misunderstanding about symptoms and the different types of symptoms. Ordinary symptoms like mild lower abdomen pain or backaches are exaggerated or misunderstood and used as a reason to stop girls from going to school, while severe symptoms like vomiting, headaches, and abdominal pain that affect women before or after a menstrual cycle are underestimated.

I would say 5% would have that kind of condition. They need a thorough investigation and thorough treatment, and even special facilities that will have to be provided by the Government. These issues are undermined and no one likes to talk about them. And menstruators experience very bad violence because of these symptoms.

How do the situations in Sri Lanka and Nepal compare? Are there lessons from or for the South Asian region?

For the last four years, our dignified menstruation campaign has been active globally. But Nepal is a small country, with diversity in topography, religion, economic conditions, and many other factors. While we talk about dignified menstruation, a huge district in the western part of Nepal still shows visible forms of menstrual discrimination. And in the rest of the country, regardless of education, religion, or socioeconomic conditions, many practice menstrual discrimination, mostly invisibly, like in Colombo.

South Asia, I would say, is more conservative compared to other regions. Many people say that discriminatory practices are based on Hindu practices, but this is wrong. Bangladesh and Pakistan are Muslim-dominated countries, but they also practice menstrual discrimination. So do Muslim, Christian, and Buddhist minorities in Nepal. It’s the same in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Mexico, and everywhere else.

In the United Kingdom (UK), they don’t like to talk about it with their partners. Girls who do well in sports don’t take part in sports activities while menstruating in fear of leaking. In Australia, it’s the same. In the US, four out of five nurses are female, but one male nurse gets a higher salary than a female nurse.

Why does the Global North or developed countries like the US, or Europe or the US suffer from the gender pay gap? Why does the Global South or poor countries in Asia and Africa suffer from discrimination against girls? Because of menstruation.

We never talk about menstruation. We never teach boys that they are born due to menstruation and that they should take accountability and feel gratitude towards women. We never talk about this at home, school, or university. And that is why we are suffering now, and why there is GBV, rape, sexual abuse, child marriage, and intimate partner violence.

Why do we need to keep this conversation going?

I found that women didn’t participate in peace-building committees or political parties because of menstruation. Let’s take an example from Sri Lanka and Nepal. During menstruation, women from certain communities cannot participate in the kitchen or the living room. So how can they guarantee women’s participation in politics?

The first parliament is the dining table. It’s the kitchen. It’s the living room. And women cannot participate in these spaces. No one talks about it.

We keep talking about rape, but once a rape occurs, it has happened. There should be response, management, and treatment, but no one talks about prevention. Globally, why are girls not safe? Because of the power inequality at home. There is an inequality between the brother and the sister. The brother sees his menstruating sister as inferior because he is “pure”. He can go anywhere, but his mother and sister can’t go to the kitchen, they can’t participate in public gatherings.

There are multiple layers that are a gentle reminder that women are low, inferior, and weak. This makes men violent, leading to more male perpetrators and female victims. To break this vicious cycle, we need to talk about dignified menstruation.

Are you planning on working in Sri Lanka again in the future?

Since we have a member organisation and steering committee members from Sri Lanka, we will have a series of meetings and knowledge-sharing sessions. There are a few organisations becoming members of our Global South Coalition for Dignified Menstruation. That is why we keep providing technical input, proposal writing, and message crafting. So we’ll have continuous collaboration with the steering committee members and other members.

On top of that, if everything goes well, we may accommodate training in the last week of December, since 8 December is International Dignified Menstruation Day, which we started in 2019. Upcoming 8 December will be the fifth International Dignified Menstruation Day and the theme has already been identified: “Dignified menstruation is integral for ending sexual violence and child marriage”.

We will have an announcement very soon for the global community on competitions, and we have been organising a virtual fellowship for the international audience. We have one participant from Sri Lanka, so Sri Lanka is with us all the time.