CARACAS, Could 26 (IPS) – This text is a part of IPS protection of Menstrual Hygiene Day celebrated on Could 28.Menstrual hygiene administration is elusive for thousands and thousands of poor ladies and women in Latin America, that suffer as a result of their residing situations make it tough or unattainable for them to entry assets and companies that might make menstruation a easy regular a part of life.
“When my interval comes, I miss class for 3 or 4 days. My household can’t afford to purchase the sanitary napkins that my sister and I want. We use cloths for the blood, though they offer me an uncomfortable rash,” says Omaira*, a 15-year-old highschool pupil.
From her low-income neighborhood of Brisas del Sur, in Ciudad Guayana, 500 kilometers southeast of Caracas, she speaks to IPS by cellphone: “We are able to’t purchase tablets to alleviate our ache both. And my interval is irregular, it does not come each month, however there are not any medical companies right here for me to go and deal with that.”
In Venezuela, “one in 4 ladies doesn’t have menstrual hygiene merchandise and so they improvise unhygienic options, akin to outdated garments, cloths, cardboard or rest room paper to make pads that operate as sanitary napkins,” activist Natasha Saturno, with the Solidarity Action NGO, tells IPS.
“The massive drawback with these improvised merchandise is that they will trigger, at finest, discomfort and embarrassment, and at worst, infections that compromise their well being,” says Saturno, director of enforceability of rights on the NGO that conducts well being help and documentation applications and surveys.
Common drawback, complete method
Is that this a neighborhood, focalized drawback? In no way: “On any given day, greater than 300 million ladies worldwide are menstruating. In complete, an estimated 500 million lack entry to menstrual merchandise and ample amenities for menstrual hygiene administration (MHM),” states a World Bankstudy.
“Right now greater than ever we have to carry visibility to the scenario of ladies and women who should not have entry to and training about menstrual hygiene. Communication makes the distinction,” mentioned Hugo González, consultant of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in Peru.
UNFPA says there’s broad settlement on what women and girls want for good menstrual well being, and argues that complete approaches that mix training with infrastructure and with merchandise and efforts to fight stigma are most profitable in attaining good menstrual well being and hygiene.
The important parts are: secure, acceptable, and dependable provides to handle menstruation; privateness for altering the supplies; secure and personal washing amenities; and data to make acceptable choices.
UNFPA’s theme this 12 months for worldwide Menstrual Hygiene Day, which is widely known each Could 28, is “Making menstruation a traditional truth of life by 2030”, the goal date for compliance with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the worldwide group on the United Nations.
The pink tax
9 out of 31 nations within the area think about menstrual hygiene merchandise important, which makes them exempt from worth added tax or lowered VAT, based on the examine “Sexist Taxes in Latin America” ??by Germany’s Friedrich Ebert Foundation.
After a “Tax-free Menstruation” marketing campaign, in 2018 Colombia turned the primary nation within the Americas to get rid of VAT – 16 p.c – on menstrual hygiene merchandise. Its neighbor Venezuela nonetheless costs 16 p.c VAT, and Argentina, Chile, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay cost VAT between 18 and 22 p.c on such merchandise.
Colombia was joined by Ecuador, Guyana, Jamaica, Mexico – the place avenue demonstrations have been held towards charging VAT on menstrual merchandise – Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago. Different nations have lowered VAT, akin to Costa Rica, Panama, Paraguay and Peru, whereas in Brazil VAT differs between states and averages 7 p.c.
The so-called “pink tax” clearly impacts the worth of menstrual hygiene merchandise akin to disposable and reusable sanitary pads and menstrual cups, which turns into particularly burdensome in nations with excessive inflation and depreciated currencies, akin to Argentina and Venezuela.
In response to the common value of the most cost effective manufacturers, ten disposable sanitary pads can price slightly below a greenback in Mexico, 1.50 greenback in Argentina or Brazil, 1.60 greenback in Colombia, Peru or Venezuela, and virtually two {dollars} in Costa Rica.
“It’s an vital drawback,” Saturno factors out, “in a rustic like Venezuela, the place nearly all of the inhabitants lives in poverty and the minimal wage – though it has been elevated with some stipends – continues to be simply 5 {dollars} a month.”
Hostile setting, scarce training
“In the event you typically cannot purchase sanitary pads, that is the smallest drawback. The worst factor is the disgrace you are feeling if you happen to go to work and the material fails to maintain your garments freed from blood, or if you happen to catch an an infection,” Nancy *, who on the age of 45 has been a casual sector employee in quite a few occupations and trades in Caracas, informed IPS.
The mom of 4 younger folks lives in Gramoven, a poor neighborhood within the northwest of the capital. Her two single daughters, ages 18 and 22, have had experiences just like Nancy’s on their technique to faculty, within the neighborhood, on the bus, and on the subway.
“The factor is, the interval just isn’t seen as one thing pure, boys and males see it as one thing soiled, at work they generally don’t perceive that if you’re in ache it’s important to keep at dwelling,” mentioned Nancy. “And while you work for your self, it’s important to exit it doesn’t matter what, as a result of if you happen to do not exit, no cash is available in.”
Saturno says that “poverty causes ladies and adolescent women to overlook days of secondary faculty or work as a result of they don’t have the provides they want once they menstruate.”
“It turns into a vicious circle, as a result of their educational or work efficiency is affected, hindering their probabilities of creating their full potential and incomes a greater earnings,” she provides.
However the issue “goes far past supplies, it doesn’t finish simply because somebody obtains the merchandise; it contains training and first rate working situations for ladies,” psychologist Carolina Ramírez, who runs the tutorial NGO Menstruating Princesses within the Colombian metropolis of Medellín, tells IPS.
Because of this, “we don’t use the time period ‘menstrual poverty’ and converse as an alternative of menstrual dignity, vindicating the necessity for society, faculties, workplaces and States to advertise training about menstruation and fight illiteracy in that space,” says Ramírez.
For instance, she mentions the widespread rejection of utilizing tampons and cups “due to the outdated taboo that the vulva shouldn’t be touched, that the vagina shouldn’t be checked out,” along with the truth that many areas and communities in Latin American nations not solely lack areas or instruments to sterilize merchandise however typically should not have clear water.
A priority raised by each Saturno and Ramírez is the nice vulnerability of migrant ladies within the area – which has obtained a flood of six million folks from Venezuela during the last 10 years, for instance – by way of menstrual and normal well being, in addition to security.
One other worrying problem is ladies in most Latin American prisons, that are unable to supply ample menstrual hygiene, since they don’t have entry to disposable merchandise or the chance to sterilize reusable provides.
All through the area, “higher efforts are required to interrupt down taboos that violate basic rights to well being, training, work, and freedom of motion, in order that menstruation generally is a stress-free human expertise,” Ramírez says.
*Names have been modified to guard the privateness of the interviewees.
© Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service
