When pads are a luxury, getting your period means missing out on life

[DOS_patos]

Every month when payday came around, Suzana Frederick purchased a packet of sanitary pads. It was the first thing she bought. And when her period started, she knew she was ready for it.
The 19-year-old single mother from Arusha, Tanzania, was making 30,000 shillings ($13) a month as a housekeeper and would spend between 1,500 and 3,000 shillings ($0.70 to $1.30) on pads -- a staggering 5% to 10% of her salary.
For an American woman making a typical wage, that would be the equivalent of between $169 and $338 for just one pack of sanitary pads.
The steep price was worth it for Frederick. The alternative of missing a few days of work each month to manage her period at home would have been more costly.
Roughly 1.8 billion people around the world menstruate. Some can't afford sanitary products. Others have nowhere to buy them. And even if price isn't an issue, stigma and taboo still stop many from fully participating in work and school during their periods.
For these women, the cost of menstruation is missing out on life.



Girls use fabric and rugs, but dream of pads
In rural Tanzania, most women and girls on their period use "kanga," layered pieces of thick, colorful fabric used for making traditional east African dresses.
The stiff material gets wet quickly and often leads to urinary tract infections. Girls and women say they live in constant fear of bleeding through.


"I put [it] on in the morning, it will be wet with blood at 10 a.m. and start showing on my skirt," says Esuvati Tisanai Shaushi, a 15-year-old Maasai girl who lives in a village near Arusha. Her school, like many in Tanzania, doesn't have toilets with running water to wash.
"I feel ashamed... keep on wondering how it will be [what will happen] in class."


Among young girls in Tanzania, the gold standard of sanitary pads is Procter & Gamble's brand Always.
Tisanai Shaushi has used them only once, when she was given a sample at school.
"I was so happy," she said. "When I removed it, my pants were clean. It was comfortable."
But when she asked her mother to buy the pads for her, the answer was no.
"She told me to use kanga because she uses them too," Tisanai Shaushi said. When she pressed the issue, her mother told her she could buy them when she got her own money.


Procter and Gamble (P&G) has invested heavily in educational campaigns in East Africa, including in Tanzania. Among other initiatives, it provides samples and starter packs to schools. But once the samples run out, the girls often go back to using kanga. Always pads are not widely available, and when they are they're more expensive than other products.
Jennifer Davis, the global head of feminine care at P&G, told CNN the cost reflects the quality: "The foundation of our portfolio globally is always superior protection."
P&G doesn't break down its revenues from its different products. But Euromonitor International, a market research company, estimated P&G made $6.2 billion selling feminine care products in 2017 -- more than any other company.

 

[DOS_patos]

The real price of periods
Elizabeth Scharpf was working for the World Bank in Mozambique when she saw the economic cost of menstruation first hand at a struggling factory making computer bags.
"The head of the factory told me that the female workers miss two to three days of work a month when they are menstruating," she said. A quick calculation revealed the business was losing 20% of its workforce because women could not afford menstrual pads -- and profits were taking a hit.
In response, Scharpf started Sustainable Health Enterprises (SHE), a social venture aimed at addressing period poverty.
Researchers, NGOs and charities all agree that it makes economic sense to start taking periods seriously.
"Whether directly or indirectly, [menstruation] actually affects everybody...and yet people who menstruate are unduly punished, because of something that's completely normal and natural," Femme International's Rubli said.
Tanzania's government reports that 60% of women live in "absolute poverty."
The period poverty situation in some cases is so extreme that research conducted by nongovernmental organizations found that women engaged in transactional sex to obtain pads.
"As a woman you're already economically disadvantaged to begin with and you're put in this position where you have to fight that much harder the rest of your life because of something that you had no control over,' Rubli said.
Suzana Frederik has been through a lot. Her mother died when she was very young. When she was in fifth grade, she lost her father.
Primary education is free in Tanzania, but compulsory uniform, school shoes and equipment became prohibitively expensive for Frederik. She dropped out shortly after her father died.
When she got pregnant aged 17, her boyfriend told her to get abortion. She refused and ended up alone, with a child to feed.
Spending 2,000 shillings ($0.87) on a pack of pads meant less money to buy food for the two of them.
She said she was lucky. "My periods lasts for three days, so one pack is enough for me."
Frederick, who now lives in a shelter for vulnerable women, can get pads when she needs them. But access to pads is still out of reach for millions of women around the world.