By Business India Editorial

Bholi, a 12-year-old girl from Dindori district in Madhya Pradesh, like her mother and sisters, used hay to absorb blood during her periods. During one such attempt, an insect in the hay entered her body and caused a severe infection in her uterus. The doctors had no option but to remove it. Bholi will never bear a child.

This oft-quoted horrific case is an extreme symbol of the problems suffered by millions of women and young girls in India due to bad Menstrual Health Management (MHM). Various studies paint a shocking picture of MHM in the country.

The social stigmas surrounding menstruation reflect the worst and most regressive aspects of India’s patriarchal society. More than 70 per cent of all girls are unaware of the concept of menstruation until menarche. A similar count of mothers consider menstruation ‘dirty’. Nearly 90 per cent of menstruating women use alternatives such as old fabric, rags, sand, ash, wood shavings, newspapers and hay.

Lack of functioning toilets results in 23 per cent girls dropping out of school every year; because in the absence of a household toilet, 66 per cent of women manage their menstruation in the open. In recent years, several policy measures by central and state governments, initiatives by the social sector and the success of Bollywood films ‘Pad Man’ and ‘Toilet, ek prem katha’ starring Akshay Kumar, have focussed attention on women’s hygiene issues.

Diageo’s efforts in this space have evolved from a project called S.H.E – Safety, Health and Empowerment – of women that is being implemented near all manufacturing locations into an initiative called ‘Stree’.

At a bottling plant in Alwar district of Rajasthan, the initiative is implemented in partnership with a local NGO – Gramodaya Samajik Sansthan (GSS). Diageo, working with GSS, encouraged the formation of Self-Help Groups (SHG) of women and provided them training on manufacturing and commercialisation of sanitary napkins. These sanitary napkins were marketed using health service providers and anganwadi workers, thereby overcoming the social taboo that is often associated with talking about menstruation.