Women's Health in India
Women’s Health in India is a very interesting and complex topic.
My main curiosity came from the womens health project I first volunteered on with an NGO named JJVS. Mainly because there are so many aspects that play into womens health in India including culture, religion, taboos, education level, social issues, nutrition, financial state and much more.
Health Camp in Bedla - Rajasthan
This has become a huge passion of mine to understand all of the above to be able to assist these amazing but vulnerable women as much as possible.
The JJVS Women’s Health pilot study is covering approximately 11,000 women in villages surrounding Vali in Rajasthan. JJVS aim to close the gap in knowledge about menstruation and hygienic practices among women and girls. Women’s Menstrual Health is still a very taboo topic in India with many reasons surrounding this.
The key issues in India surrounding menstrual health include:
Lack of education and awareness
Lack of access to menstrual health products
Cultural taboos and social issues
Lack of support from government
Firstly let’s discuss education.
Only 20% of rural village women in Rajasthan are literate compared to 80% of men. This rate is mainly due to girls not going to school. This can be for a few different reasons such as financial situations and family and cultural values that the women should stay home to look after the home and younger siblings. A poor statistic is that only 40% of girls are still in school by 12 years old in North India.
The next thing to understand is the religious and cultural views towards menstruation.
It is known in India that menstrual blood is impure and even though this is an old wives tale it is still very much believed. It is known that when you are menstruating you should not visit the temple and you should not enter the kitchen or cook for the family. Some temples that I have visited actually have signs at the entrance advising menstruating women should not enter. It is hard to imagine what growing up with these values taught to you would feel like. A lot of women feel disempowered and definitely feel that having a menstrual bleed is not a good thing.
Menstrual health is a very taboo topic in India so when a girl gets her first period, there is very rarely any education around it or guidance about what is normal and what is not. No one talks about it so it is made to feel like a very private and embarrassing topic for girls.
Many girls and women do not have access to menstrual hygiene products nor would they know how to use them and nor can they usually afford them. As most general stores or corner stores are run by men it would be highly embarrassing to go and buy pads even if someone were to have enough money to.
Health camp in Vali - Rajasthan
Did you know that most village women in India have never seen a sanitary pad before and usually use old cloths / dirt/ leaves / mud to soak up their menstrual blood.
The next issue stemming from this is that because menstrual health being so taboo, women are not to dry their menstrual cloths in the open view of others therefore have to dry them inside or underneath other clothes. This means the cloth does not get sanitised properly and this is where infections and health issues can start from.
The lack of education, awareness, support and access to menstrual hygiene products mean many issues arise such as:
Bacterial vaginosis (60% of women in rural Rajasthan experience)
Thrush
Heavy bleeds
Uterine prolapse
Anaemia (51% of girls and women in rural Rajasthan)
These health issues then mean girls and women cannot go to school or work.
Periods often end a schooling education for girls due to lack of awareness, support and menstrual hygiene products.
The next issue is that these menstrual health problems can just get worse due to high birth rates. If you are constantly pregnant or breastfeeding this can make infections and anaemia much much worse.
Womens Menstrual Health Workshop - Vali - Rajasthan
Through the NGO’s I have been working with we have been assisting on a couple of projects.
First project is with JJVS where we worked with the change makers who run workshops to village women and have funded many pad making machines for the women to actually work in and then sell the pads door to door to women to earn income.
This project has reached approximately 11,000 women.
This is an amazing project due to enabling women to learn a new skill and earn an income to contribute to the family without having to do daily labour work and travelling very far. It also cuts out the middle man by allowing women to purchase menstrual pads at a very low amount of money and not having to leave their house to purchase them. It’s a win win and the project is running very well.
Learning about how to use menstrual pads - Vali - Rajasthan
The second project I have worked on and helped to create from scratch is with the NGO Helping Hands Society.
Here we run health camps at the local Anganwadi’s (child care centres) to assist pregnant women and children.
We analyse the foods fed to the children at the Anganwadi and help make changes to better the nutrition accordingly.
The health camps are essential to keep the immune system and hormonal health well for the women and babies.
We are running a pilot study currently with the girls and women of this village after we have distributed reusable menstrual hygiene pads.
We have provided workshops and education sessions to the girls and women around hormones, hygiene, and the importance of using pads during this time.
The reusable pads of course is a much better option for the environment given the state of the pollution in India already.
If you are interested to learn more there is a documentary on Netflix “Period. End of sentence”.
This documentary explains all about the man who saw his new wedded wife struggling with the issues of having a menstrual cycle and not having access to menstrual pads.
Another great movie is “Pad Man” - if you are more of a masala person and want some Bollywood action.
This is a huge passion of mine and I am very happy to share with you the information I have learnt along the way and the projects I am currently working on.
Ellen xx
Health camp - Shivpuri - Rajasthan