Cultural & Ethical Aspects

Cultural Aspects include the beliefs, values, behaviors, norms, and social customs of people in Kenya and how those things affect the problem of access to and education of feminine hygiene.

Evidence indicates that the culture of Kenya affects the access and education of feminine hygiene products in the following major ways:

1) Isolating girls during their period

2) Social stigmas & gender dynamics prevent open and honest discussions about menstruation.

ISOLATING WOMEN DURING PERIODS

In this story, reported by Carren from vpro Metropolis, women and girls in this rural Kenyan village are ostracized from the rest of the community during their periods. The men consider menstruating women unclean and will have multiple wives so as to never be alone ("Menstruation in Kenya", 2010).

When girls are isolated from others during their periods it drastically affects daily life. They may not be able to pray, be around others including family members, or have any contact as they can find themselves isolated to sheds or locked in their room. Women may also be unable to contribute to the housework such as feeding or milking cattle (VPRO Metropolis, 2010).

Being isolated can affect the total wellness of a girl, as they may be forced to use dirty materials for pads such as newspapers, trash, or leaves. Some girls will place a piece of cardboard on the ground and sit on it for the duration of her period, refusing to move until it is over. This means she will give up eating and drinking unless someone remembers to bring her food (TEDx Talks, 2013).

Girls may also be forced to exploit themselves to boyfriends or others in order to receive feminine products, which can snowball into a whole new slew of problems including STD transmission, child marriages, and forcing the girl to drop out of school to raise the children she may end up having (TEDx Talks, 2013).

SOCIAL STIGMAS

Social stigmas imposed by society enforce the idea that periods are wrong, dirty, and makes one unclean (VPRO Metropolis, 2010). There have been scriptures in the Bible, the Qur'an, Ancient Egyptian medical texts and Greek philosophies depicting the uncleanliness of a menstruating woman (Medium 2017). With this stigma imposed on girls, there can be no open conversation between girls, even a mother and her daughter (FSG, 2016), about what her body is going through. This can lead to mental health problems such as body dysmorphia.

Girls cannot seek out education on what’s happening to her maturing body, and thus may try to hide the whole ordeal from all those around her to prevent the stigmas from affecting her (VPRO Metropolis, 2010). It is common for girls to believe they are deathly ill or seriously injured because they don’t receive education about menstruation in school or at home, and may feel embarrassed or ashamed for the blood stains on their clothes (TEDx Talks 2013).

In her TEDTalk, Aditi Gupta talks about her struggle with her menstrual cycle while growing up in India and her eventual idea to use books to educate and normalize periods for young girls around the world (Gupta, 2015).

Gender Dynamics

Gender dynamics become more noticeable during puberty and can leave young women and girls particularly vulnerable.

Ethics

Ethics has to do with the rightness and wrongness or justice of actions. Two ethical imperatives involve 'first, do no harm' and 'second, do good'.

Ethical issues related to culture and the access and education of feminine hygiene products are:

1) It affects multiple SDGs

2) Access to and education of feminine hygiene is a human right.

SDGs and Ethics

The access to and education of feminine hygiene affects multiple Sustainable Developmental Goals.

No Poverty: In Kenya, many families live on as little as a $1 a day. If feminine hygiene products cost that much or more, buying these products can cause a family to go into debt or force them to live even further under the poverty line. When girls are forced to drop out of school or miss work due to their periods, this continues the cycle of poverty.

No Hunger: When MHM becomes affordable, and a family does not have to choose between food and sanitary products, more income can go towards purchasing plentiful and nutritious foods. When girls stay in school, they can go on to earn more for their families and themselves.

Good Health: In order to buy sanitary supplies, women may sexually exploit themselves to earn money which can lead to STI/HIV transmission and unplanned pregnancies. Furthermore, women may be using unhygienic materials as a pad replacement leading to infections.

Quality Education: When a girl doesn’t have the proper tools and supplies to help her during her period she may stay home from school. Eventually, she may miss so much school that she is forced to drop out due to missed instruction.

Gender Equality & Reduced Inequalities: When girls drop out of school, gender disparities are further enforced. In situations of transactional sex, men become the powerful figure in the relationship, and in future marriages only men are able to find paying jobs because they were able to stay in school longer.

Innovation and Infrastructure & Clean Water and Sanitation: Organizations have tried to help developing countries by shipping hundreds of disposable pads and/or tampons to girls in need, but the communities that need them most don’t have the ability to properly dispose of them once used. This brings into play the goal of clean water and sanitation for all. Some organizations have recognized the issues facing communities and developed reusable solutions. Unfortunately, most school bathrooms in Kenya lack a private place for girls to use the bathroom and safely manage her period.

Decent Work and Economic Growth: When girls cannot finish school, this negatively effects the economic prosperity of her country.

Access to feminine hygiene products & education is a human right

So many SDGs are affected by something that may not seem like that big of an issue to much of the world's population. But this is a huge issue. This isn’t just about the luxury tax women face on these products, but rather the violation of their human rights because of the access to these products is limited and in some cases blocked around the world.

It should be considered a human rights violation to deny a girl education, not just in general but about her body and the changes taking place in it. It is unethical to make a girl drop out for not being able to afford or otherwise access these products because of a biological event no one can control. It should be a human violation to force girls into isolation during their period, whether by sending them to live in a goat shack for a week or locking them in their room to sit on a piece of cardboard. Girls should not feel forced into child marriages or otherwise prostitute themselves so they can receive menstrual supplies and attend school.