There have been numerous social initiatives to make sanitary napkins cheaper and more eco-friendly.
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Efforts to make sanitary products available free in public facilities are underway in Wisconsin and Ohio.
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Scotland has reportedly become the first country in the world to make sanitary products free for students at all schools.
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"In our hygiene club, we have learned how to make sanitary pads, and also teach our friends about menstruation," Esther says.
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The organization employs 15 local women from Mumbai slums to make sanitary pads, while another 50 women distribute them door to door in the slums.
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This follows Scotland's 2018 decision to make sanitary products free to all students in schools, colleges, and universities in the country, according to the Guardian.
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The Parliament in Scotland approved a proposal to make sanitary products available for free to all women, becoming the first country in the world to pass such a measure.
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LONDON, Feb 25 (Reuters) - The Scottish parliament on Tuesday is due to approve plans to make sanitary products freely available to all women - the first nation in the world to do so.
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To make sanitary products even more inaccessible, about 40 states in the United States (including New York) slap them with a sales tax -- a cost that products deemed "necessities," such as groceries, are exempt from in many states.
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A school dropout from Tamil Nadu, a state in south India, he was horrified to discover that his wife was using dirty cloths and so set out to make sanitary towels at a fraction of the cost of the branded ones sold by multinationals.
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PARIS, March 20 (Reuters) - French sugar and ethanol group Cristal Union said on Friday it was running at low capacity due to a slump in ethanol demand, despite a rise in table sugar output and a surge in production of pharmaceutical alcohol to make sanitary gel.
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In order to address these issues and "banish the scourge of period poverty," the Scottish government approved a £5.2 million ($6.7 million) initiative that will make sanitary products free at all schools, colleges and universities — making Scotland the first country in the world to do so, according to The Guardian.
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Lahu Ka Lagaan is a social media campaign by She Says India, a non-profit organisation, to remove the 12% taxation on sanitary napkins in India and make sanitary napkins tax-exempt. Lahu Ka Lagaan translates to 'the tax on blood' from Hindi. The campaign was launched in April 2017, following the release of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) rates being rolled out by the Indian government, that placed sanitary napkins at the second lowest tax slab of 12%. The campaign received widespread attention, when celebrities like Mallika Dua, Cyrus Broacha, Vishal Dadlani and Aditi Rao Hydari used their social media influence to voice their support for the campaign, and asked the Indian finance minister Arun Jaitley to make sanitary napkins to be made tax-free.
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Stigmas, combined with financial restraints, further add to the neglected state of menstrual health. The WASH project by Humans For Humanity is actively working in six states and has employed women from the villages, making them financially self-sufficient. The eco friendly, reusable cloth pads last up to 2-2.5 years and come as part of a kit that also has liners, undergarments, soap bars & a guide. Hundreds of community workers, women, self help groups & ngos have been given online workshop to make sanitary napkins by Humans For Humanity during the lockdown. Anurag’s efforts being a man have been immense in making these women become self-reliant.
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In another session, Anurag handed over tulsi saplings to women and asked them to nurture the sapling for a month and then see the results. Chauhan started this project after reading an article written about deaths caused due to lack of menstruation hygiene. His cause received support from actress Twinkle Khanna. Chauhan runs awareness programs in many villages, slums, schools and colleges of Uttarakhand, Delhi, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka. During the nationwide lockdown the efforts of Humans for Humanity has come as a great help to the women who have been taught how to make sanitary napkins at home as they don’t have to go out and buy them but they can make hygienic sanitary pads themselves at home.
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The papyrus sanitary pad aims primarily to help make sanitary pads an affordable and accessible necessity for young girls in developing countries. They help tackle the problem of girls' absenteeism in school owing to menstruation and associated behaviours for which they do not have adequate facilities (for example: lack of privacy for cleaning, poor availability of pads, lack of education about menstrual hygiene, lack of separate toilet facilities, and lack of access to water). Many women in the west of Uganda have to employ poor substitutes for sanitary pads, considering they are twice the cost of their average incomes ($1,25 a day). While only a handful few can afford this luxury, most others make use of cloth rags, banana leaves, or waste paper.
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The first attempt to institute overall state supervision of these services came in 1871 when the legislature creatied the State Board of Charities and Reform. Its duties included examination of the operations of state institutions and their boards and investigation of practices in local asylums, jails, and schools for the blind and deaf. In 1876, the legislature established the State Board of Health to “study the vital statistics of this state, and endeavor to make intelligent and profitable use of the collected records of death and sickness among the people.” The board was directed to “make sanitary investigations and inquiries respecting the causes of disease, and especially of epidemics; the causes of mortality, and the effects of localities, employments, conditions, ingesta, habits and circumstances on the health of the people.” This directive still defines much of the work done in public health by the department.
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