How menstrual hygiene issues and period stigma keep schoolgirls out of classrooms in India

The Hindu

29-05-2025

Taboos and stigma around menstruation abound in the Indian subcontinent, and, despite progress, practices such as getting young women married after they hit puberty or restricting them from praying, cooking, or sometimes even sleeping inside home or using their bed continue, all attributed to the 'impurity' menstruation
This culture of silence around menstruation and restrictions around open conversations have a huge impact on the health and education of adolescent girls -- not only does it lead to the spread of misinformation and unhygienic practices, it also keeps girls out of school one in four girls in India miss school due to menstruation, says a 2024 study by Shafique Ahmed et al, in the Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care .
Issues faced by schoolgirls during menstruation
Experts who work in the field say that a lack of proper washrooms, insufficient water supply, menstrual cramp management and sanitary pad disposal are some of the major problems faced by school-going girls across India.
'I have come across students taking leave from school during their periods. Parents start thinking about their marriage and many get married soon after puberty. Many of the girls in my school are already married,' said Dimple Singh, a teacher at a government school in Meerut, Uttar Pradesh.
Medical professionals say that the onset of the menstruation is looked upon as the 'start of fertility,' and that is where the desire to 'look for a groom to marry the girl off', stems from.
'Across many rural parts of India, mothers play a central role in making choices post menstruation – and often make decisions for the girl to stay at home – whatever the reasons are. This furthers absenteeism, and can also create a gap between girls and boys attending the same schools,' said Divyang Waghela, head – Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene, Tata Trust.
Multiple field workers report that girls feel shy speaking about their own menstruation cycles and face backlash at home even if they want to open up about the topic. Many have reported during closed-door conversations that they do not understand why they have experience abdominal pain, and talking about this at home or at the doctor's has fallen deaf ears. .
'During one of our community events, 'Khullam Khulla Baat Karenge', silence spoke louder than those who actually spoke. 14-year-old Khushi confessed that she kept mum at the event because she was too shy to speak about periods in public. Stakeholders say that this issue is very 'personal' and must not be made public. This mindset reflects the widespread attitude that menstruators must silently endure discriminatory practices,' said Shalini Jha, founder, Alharh, a menstrual awareness and equity campaign.
Lack of access to sanitary products
Research also sheds light on the fact that many schools do not have supplies of sanitary napkins or clean restrooms for women to take care of their period needs. In 2022, when a girl in Bihar had asked for free sanitary pads at her school, senior IAS official Harjot Kaur Bhamra shamed her and said, 'Tomorrow, you attain the age of family planning and you would expect government to provide Nirodh (condom) too.'
According to a 2022 study in BMC Public Health in 2022, only 42% adolescent women in rural India can access hygienic sanitary products. Even though the department of school education and literacy of the Education Ministry has recognised the challenges faced by the girls due to limited access to sanitary products and menstrual hygiene facilities during examinations in June 2024, there is no nationwide mandate on making sanitary products available, much less for for free, in India.
'I grew up in a household where there was a big ceremony and celebration when girls attained puberty, but the month after, when we got our periods, we became 'impure' and were placed in isolation, with separate clothing, vessels, etc., I have had to unlearn all of these myths and allow myself to experience the process of menstruation without any guilt, but it took years to dispel the shame,' Revathy B. from Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu told The Hindu.
Ms Revathy spoke about how, even after having a child, and now as an older woman she has not been able to free herself from the shame of period blood stains. She remembers missing school during her periods due to the lack of clean restrooms and said that would pray that her periods started on a weekend or holiday, so she did not have to miss out on her classes.
No doors in school washrooms
Nayna Mondal, a field worker of the Rangeen Khidki Foundation from Kolkata said that during intervention in schools and communities they learnt that many of the school washrooms did not even have doors.
'The schools lack resources. Hundreds of students use one or two washrooms, and they aren't even cleaned once in seven days. The conditions are very unhygienic,' Sanjina Gupta, founder of Rangeen Khidki, said. She also highlighted that many of the girls who have gained awareness about menstruation through their awareness drives face problems at home when they try to speak freely about the issue. Experts say that older men and women of the house refuse to accept scientific explanations and sometimes even years of rapport building and de-stigmatisation does not help.
Ms. Gupta also said that in their initial days of work they faced backlash from men in the neighbourhoods they worked in. Their posters were torn down, they were criticised for speaking about a 'dirty' topic, but with time and repeated counselling, people have become more accepting of their work.
Call for better healthfocused policies and interventions
Last year, on July 8, the Supreme Court of India directed the Central government to frame a model policy on menstrual leave for female employees; this was a landmark moment in bringing about policy-level change and making menstrual issue a part of open conversations. Even though ground-level implementation is yet to be seen, this move is a step forward in the process of destigmatisation of menstruation, experts said.
But even after years of field work and intervention, Ms. Jha pointed out, 'the voices from the ground remain dishearteningly similar: a tale of shame and stigma that represents clear violations of fundamental rights.'
'The path ahead should be centered around fundamentally reframing the conversation around menstruation – inviting more households to recognise it as an indicator of health instead of a marker or sexual maturity,' Mr. Waghela said.