Women in Pakistan sew sanitary pads to break period taboo for girls

Some of their work was met with insults in the country's most rural areas.

Women in rural Pakistan are stitching sanitary pads in hopes of aiding female hygiene and breaking period taboos.

Hajra Bibi, 35, started making the pads in Booni, a mountainous village in northwestern Pakistan, to support her family, as her husband is disabled and they have little income.

She is one of around 80 women trained to make the sanitary products by the Aga Khan Rural Support Program (AKRSP), an NGO working with Unicef.

At first, her work resulted in insults from others living in the area, as menstruation carries a stigma of being shameful and unclean.

Traditionally, women in the village use rags and cloth to soak up their menstrual blood, but the lack of openness about the subject means hygiene standards can be low.

According to Bushra Ansari of AKRSP, many women are too ashamed to dry the cloths outside, and end up using them while they are still damp or wet.

This can create a breeding ground for bacteria and quickly lead to infection.

While in some families, females share the same menstrual rags, which increases the risk of contracting urinary and reproductive tract infections.

Wassaf Sayed Kakakhail, a doctor from Booni noted that women are also told not to wash during their period as well.

She said: ‘If there are three girls in the same family, they all use the same pieces of fabric.’

Less than a fifth of women use sanitary pads in Pakistan, local charities estimate.

According to a 2017 Unicef survey, half the country’s young women hadn’t heard of periods before they began them and at first believed they had a ‘very serious illness’ or cancer.

The nation is currently ranked 148th out of 149 by the World Economic Forum for gender equality.

Ms Bibi hopes that by making the pads, girls in the village ‘can talk about their periods’, adding that she is fighting ‘for the basic needs of women’.

She continued: ‘With this project, I have made people aware.’

Sanitary products are much easier to find in Pakistan’s cities, although they can be expensive, charities state.

They are also often wrapped in opaque paper, instead of in transparent bags like other products.

Sajjad Ali, 32, a store owner, said many women don’t like to buy the pads themselves and instead ask their husbands or male family members to do it.

She said: ‘Some people buy them late at night, others prefer to buy them in a different neighbourhood’.