By Theresa Nyava-Machadu
In 2020 there was a landmark development in the menstrual health management space, following the signing of the Education Amendment Act into law by President Emmerson Mnangagwa. We celebrated Section 4(1a) of the Act which requires the State to “ensure the provision of sanitary wear and other menstrual health facilities to girls in all schools to promote menstrual health.” This legislation makes it a legal obligation for government to provide free sanitary wear to all school girls.
The background of this legislation is that many school girls were and are still suffering from period poverty, with many of them missing school due to lack of proper menstrual products and pain management, which affect their right to education.
For those girls that may choose to attend school wearing makeshift materials for pads, they risk being mocked in the event of staining their uniforms with blood, especially noting how period stigma and taboos are still prevalent countrywide.
They also find it difficult concentrate in class or participate in co-curricular activities, fearing that they might stain. In the absence of proper sanitary wear, some school girls are desperately forced to resort to using medieval means such as cow dung, pieces of rags, newspapers and other unsafe and unhealthy means, which expose them to health risks such as urinary and reproductive tract infections, toxic shock syndrome, cervical cancer, or even infertility.
In light of the above, for some of us who had been lobbying for the Education Act to address the issue of sanitary wear for school girls, we were quite elated that girls were now guaranteed to get sanitary wear, to address the challenges above.
Treasury allocated Z$200 million (US$12.5 million) in the 2020 National Budget, Z$600 million (US$7.34 million) in the 2021 National Budget, and Z$1.23 billion (US$11.64 million) in the 2023 National Budget for the provision of sanitary wear to school girls.
While I acknowledge these steps in the right direction, I however started to observe some issues of concern in the implementation of this school girls’ sanitary wear programme. I will discuss some of the key issues below.
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