Today, 28 May, is International Menstrual Hygiene Day.
Menstruation, a completely natural process for all women* of childbearing age, is not experienced in the same way in every part of the world.
Culture, religion, social class, wars and above all patriarchy are factors that prevent women* from exercising their right to an informed and healthy menstruation. We recognise this as violence against women*. This violence is extreme in cases of absolute precarity, such as women* who are currently victims of the violence of armed conflict. Women* are forced to stop menstruating because they have no access to hygiene products such as pads, tampons, etc. or because they lack access to clean water.
As Space2groW, we run empowerment workshops in refugee accommodation centres, including on the topic of women's health. This experience has made us realise the difficulties that these people face in order to experience healthy and safe menstruation.
Shared toilets, unsafe accommodation, lack of financial means to buy hygiene products, language barriers that do not allow access to information about the products available on the German market, isolation, lack of education about what happens to the body during, before and after menstruation - these are just some of the difficulties that we want and need to make visible. From our intersectional feminist perspective and from our understanding of menstrual hygiene as a human right linked to reproductive justice, we believe it is urgent to make visible that a "normal" and "natural" issue does not apply to all women today.
Comments