Are Bamboo and Banana Fibers The New Frontier in Menstruation Technology?
November 17, 2014
The 1998 floods in Bangladesh, among the most destructive in history, brought with them a particularly embarrassing consequence for girls and women living in displacement camps: perineal rashes and urinary tract infections. According to PLAN, this occurred simply because girls and women were not able to wash their menstrual rags in private and did not have access to appropriate drying areas and clean water. As one emergency WASH worker stated, “Menstrual hygiene is still very low on the list of priorities.”
There are few events more confusing and upsetting for young girls than the onset of menstruation. In areas of the world where menstruation is not stigmatized and where obtaining disposable pads is relatively cheap and easy, periods graduate into becoming an annoyance with few serious implications for daily life. In the developing world, particularly in situations of displacement, menstruation can become dangerous and an impediment to social progress.
In resource-poor countries where disposable pads are inaccessible or expensive, rags are often washed and reused. Stigma and poor sanitation facilities present real reasons for girls to feel too embarrassed to go to class. This hints at the serious implications for education and income, with some regions in India reporting that women miss up to 50 days of work or school per year to stay at home. During situations of displacement where camp administrators too often overlook this issue, the embarrassment and risks of poor menstruation practices is exacerbated. It is time to not only start recognizing this need in humanitarian environments, but thinking of it in terms of a livelihood strategy and a tool for women’s economic and social empowerment.
Innovative projects such as Saathi in India and social impact businesses in Rwanda serve as positive examples of groups seeking sustainable and profitable solutions. They use local resources such as trunk and banana fibers, bamboo, and papyrus to create disposable products. In Uganda, companies like AFRIpads are also training communities to form businesses that use local cloths to build hygienic and stylish reusable pads.
These innovative and local income-generating ideas have the capacity to be adopted in displaced communities. Instead of training women and even men in skills for already saturated markets, new menstruation technologies present a solution for the health and social needs of displaced women, and can easily become a sustainable livelihoods activity.
As the International Center for Research on Women’s publication “Innovation for Women's Empowerment and Gender Equality” explains, “[i]nnovation and women’s empowerment are rarely discussed within the same context but each has essential value for human progress.”