Mumbai basti girls question taboos around menstruation: Vacha survey

Vacha’s survey showed that lack of living space left little room for stigmatising practices that force a menstruating girl to be separated from her family

MUMBAI

Mumbai basti girls question taboos around menstruation: Vacha survey

From mandating “periods leave” at the workspace to the necessity of including adolescent boys in awareness sessions on menstruation – these and many more ideas were discussed at a seminar held by the feminist group Vacha on Tuesday, on the occasion of Menstrual Hygiene Day. Representatives of almost a dozen groups who work on women’s health across Maharashtra shared what they had learnt during their work.

Vacha’s survey of 272 teenagers living in Mumbai’s slums, released on the occasion, showed that lack of living space left little room for the inhabitants to carry out traditional stigmatising practices that force a menstruating girl to sit separately from the family. At the other extreme were tribal teenagers in Gadchiroli, banished to ‘kurma ghars’ during their periods.

In 2014, women in three villages of this district forced the male heads of their villages, including pujaris, to spend a part of the funds available to their gram sabha on improving these snake-infested, dark ‘kurma ghars’. This movement spread to many more villages.

The differences in dealing with menstruation for Mumbai’s girls and those in the rural areas were many, but so were the similarities.

Lack of space in Mumbai’s slums didn’t mean an end to other superstitions which saw menstruation as impure. The girls surveyed by Vacha were not allowed to touch pickles, go to the temple or perform namaz. What Vacha’s survey found, however, was that a few girls had started questioning these superstitions.

Another shared concern was the disposal of sanitary napkins. While most slum girls in Mumbai could access these - municipal schools are supposed to give them free of charge - they had no place to dispose of them, so they left them on the window sills of public toilets. In Akola’s tribal districts, the girls normally burn their menstrual rags. Finding it impossible to do so in the monsoons, they kept them till the rainy season got over.

Vacha had found that “sex education” classes for boys had made the latter more sympathetic towards the girls they knew, including their mothers. One educator however, spoke of another reason to educate teenage boys: their addiction to pornography had corrupted their view of women’s bodies.

The consensus at the seminar was that menstrual health was a human right and women must claim their share of funds from the various concerned departments to make it a reality. They demanded that sanitary napkins be handed out along with rations. A hotline for girls who needed help during their periods; and training school teachers to deal with their students more sensitively were some of the suggestions.

The Vacha survey, authored by Dr Sangeeta Desai, recommended that authorities in Mumbai ensure clean community toilets with adequate water supply; a sufficient number of garbage disposal bins that are cleared regularly; a regular supply of good quality sanitary napkins in schools, colleges and health centres; health camps for adolescent girls and awareness camps for their families.

Will the BMC and state government comply?