‘I didn’t want to eat due to the smell of period blood on my hands’

Nagamma would refuse to eat after washing the rags she used during her period. She would scrub them in water for hours to remove the stains.

It was the pungent smell of blood – lingering on the social worker’s hands afterwards – that disgusted her the most and put her off her food.

Her story is far from unique. Being a menstruating woman in India means having to face many challenges, particularly for those living in rural areas.

Trekking miles and miles to the nearest town to buy pads is one obstacle.

Others are shamed into dropping out of school, excluded from social and religious events, or forced to miss work.

Sushilla, a dairy farmer in the southwestern region of Karnataka, told Metro she has had to skip weddings, family trips to temples in nearby towns and would be unable to travel to sell her milk because of her period.

‘I only used cloth rags because that is women in my family had introduced me to. Cloth rags are incredibly tough for me to manage with,’ the 38-year-old said.

‘It was a tedious process to clean and maintain them. Even when I washed them, I had to make sure there was a separate area for drying and nobody would see it.

‘Sometimes it would rain and the rags would not dry well. But, I still had to use them even when they were damp, because I had no choice. It was also uncomfortable to do basic things like walking around my village, because I was always worried about leaks. They felt bulky and wet when you wore it for too long.’

In India, one in 10 girls below the age of 21 cannot afford sanitary products and use unhygienic substitutes.

A study from 2016 showed that only 36% of the 355 million menstruating women use sanitary pads, while the rest use old rags, leaves, and other life-threatening materials to manage.

Those who can afford products often have to travel long distances to buy them, a burden that disrupts their work and daily lives.

Every month, Suma, a 22-year-old social worker, has to travel 12 miles from her village to Kanakapura, a city in the Ramanagara district of Karnataka.

‘A lot of time is wasted as well as money,’ she told Metro.

It is not only working women that lose out. Around 23 million girls in India drop out of school each year when they begin their period. One of the main reasons is a lack of clean toilets in schools.

Deepika, a 15-year-old student, said that changing pads at school was a big problem as there were no dustbins to throw them away.

For her, there was also the anxiety of leaking and staining around boys at school, which she described as ‘detrimental’ to her mental wellbeing.

The girls who remain in school might miss up to five days of each month during their period.

Beside financial challenges, periods are also still considered impure and are a taboo in many communities across the South Asian country.

Given the lack of conversation around it, at least 71% of adolescent girls in India are unaware of menstruation until they get it themselves, according to a study by the University of Warwick.

Deepika added: ‘Periods are still a huge taboo. I dreaded periods because of this anxiety and embarrassment of leaking.’

Sushila said: ‘Periods were not openly discussed before, and it was seen as “dirty” so we had to do everything in secret.

‘For example, washing and drying our cloth rags where no one could see them, and we could not talk about how we were feeling.’

Nagamma, Suma, Sushila and Deepika all spoke with Metro with the help of Asan, a menstrual cup company, and the charity Action Foundation.

Asan’s donation scheme has helped over 75,000 women in India combat period poverty.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

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