MPs advocate for cheap sanitary pads for girls

Members of Parliament (MPs) have appealed to the Government to consider reducing the cost of sanitary materials to make it affordable, especially for poor young girls and women.

They said removing the import tariffs on sanitary materials and supporting local innovation would enable wider affordability and contribute to a reduction of current safety and production concerns.

Mrs Comfort Doyoe Cudjoe Ghansah, the Second Deputy Minority Whip, in a statement on the floor of Parliament, supported the call for cheap sanitary materials.

The statement is to commemorate this year’s Menstrual Hygiene Management Day as Ghana joins the world to mark the event.

“Menstruation is a normal and healthy part of life for the girls and women. Roughly 26 per cent of the world’s population, seven million girls and women in Ghana menstruate,” she said.

“For girls in Ghanaian schools, between the ages of nine and 14 years, experiencing menstruation for the first time can be a terrifying experience.”

Mrs Ghansah said two out of five Ghanaian public basic schools did not have toilet facilities with the investments in water and sanitation infrastructure being largely limited.

She said inadequate facilities affect girls experience in school and the ability to confidently manage menstruation.

The latest household survey conducted by the Ghana Statistical Service found that as many as one out of five adolescent girls feel excluded from education, social activities and work whilst they are menstruating.

Mrs Ghansah also stated that the consequences from the constrained environment could significantly impact the education, health and protection of the girls.

She called on the authorities to build on the Ghana Education Service (GES) minimum guidelines for Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) in schools, which required that all toilets were gender separated and private and that a safe space was available for girls to change their sanitary pads and clean themselves up.

She said sexual education must be mainstreamed in the education curricula to make access to information systematic and coherent to enable all girls and boys to be empowered to reach their full potentials.

Mrs Ghansah called for girls’ empowerment and community engagement for adolescent protection.

“It is critical to support and increase community-based programmes that engages with adolescent girls and boys, particularly those out of school, caregivers and community leaders, on issues of life skills, adolescent development and protection, adolescent sexual and reproductive health and rights.”

Madam Helen Adjoa Ntoso, the MP for Krachi West, urged the Ministry of Education to resource the School Health Educational Programme (SHEP) with logistics to be able to go round the various schools to educate the teenagers on sexual health.

She reiterated the call for sanitary materials to be made available to adolescent girls in various schools to help them maintain good hygiene.

Dr Emmanuel Marfo, the MP for Oforikrom, in his contribution, called on his colleagues to complement the efforts of the Education Ministry to help supply sanitary pads to schools in their various constituencies.

He said since MPs were able to supply footballs and jerseys to their constituents, he did not see why they could not supply sanitary pads to schools.

Mrs Dela Sowah, the MP for Kpando, said issues about menstrual hygiene should be well articulated and not made a taboo in the society. She said half of the girls who dropped out of school were because of menstrual hygiene while teenage girls who soiled themselves in school were laughed at by their colleague boys.

She stressed the need to help the young girls out of the problem so that they could stay in school.

Ms Cecilia Appiagyei, the Deputy Minister of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, noted that the menstrual cycle of young girls had changed due to a lot of nutritional factors.

She said parents had a critical role to play in educating their young girls about menstrual hygiene.