National Period Action Day (PAD)

National Period Action Day (PAD) is a day dedicated to strengthening the menstruation movement and promoting action to eradicate period poverty within our lifetimes.

What Is Period Poverty?

Period poverty is a term used to describe how women and girls are prevented from achieving success due to a lack of access to sanitary products, restrooms, hand-washing stations, waste management systems, and other essentials. Periods still carry a lot of stigma. Too many people currently struggle to purchase period products or experience period poverty as a result of this stigma.

The well-being and empowerment of women and teenage girls depend on menstrual health and hygiene (MHH). More than 300 million women in the world are menstruation at any given time. An estimated 500 million people worldwide lack access to menstruation products and suitable period hygiene management facilities (MHM). Girls and women need access to WASH facilities, inexpensive and suitable menstrual hygiene products, information on good practises, and a welcoming environment where they may manage their menstruation without embarrassment or stigma in order to manage it properly.

Girls, women, and other people who menstruate have challenges that go beyond a simple lack of infrastructure or resources. Although the majority of women and girls view menstruation as a normal and healthy stage of life, menstruators’ experiences are nonetheless constrained in many communities by social stigmas and oppressive cultural taboos. As a result, ignorance about menstruation creates false beliefs and negative attitudes that, among other things, enable bullying, humiliating, and even gender-based violence. Additionally, it leads to unsanitary and unhealthy menstruation practises. For generations of girls and women, poor menstrual hygiene and health aggravate social and economic inequality, which has a negative impact on their education, health, safety, and human development.

This National Period Action Day (PAD), let us all pledge to eradicate the taboo that revolves around period and make menstrual hygiene products accessible to each girl and woman in India.