'No more hopscotch': Gender equity, sanitation and girl's education.

“Periods shouldn't come in the way of us achieving our dreams. I don’t think any girl should miss a school day because she is a girl.” –Melal, 15, Ethiopia (Water Aid)

In this context menstruation is usually positioned in a water, sanitation and hygiene and highlights the interdependence between sanitation, gender equity and education. As, the late, UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan said, "there is no tool for development more effective than the education of girls" (UN, 2006) and without adequate toilet facilities, menstruation creates another gender disparity in education access (Jewitt and Ryley, 2014).

'No more hopscotch', the title of this blog, is one of the first things a young northern Tanzanian women, in an interview in Sommer's 2012 study, said she missed about girlhood and school. One of the main markers for leaving girlhood and entering adulthood is menstruation. There are many social, cultural and physical implications of beginning a menstrual cycle but the challenges around the management of menstruation is a key reason why girls miss school or leave altogether. Water and sanitation facilities are key to this.

In my post on World Toilet Day I introduced the importance of menstruation friendly toilets and posted this video of an Indian girl facing the stress of an ill equipped toilet in her school. There is unreliable running water and this is exacerbated by the social stigma and shame around menstruation.





"Leaking toilets.

Reeking toilets.

One that has no lock.

One that has no light.

Toilets without water.

Toilets without soap.




Terrible on any day,

but a real nightmare when on your period.




Period friendly toilets matter!

#NoMoreLimits #WorldToiletDay" - Mentrual Hygiene Day, 2018

In a study on adolescent girl's health, menstruation was described "as the most significant social stressor and barrier to schooling" (McMahon et al., 2011:2).
In Kenya there have been significant advances in primary education with more than 80% of all girls and boys enrolled in primary school - often praised as a success of the Millennium Development Goals. However, in secondary school this rate of attendance drops dramatically, especially for girls and while poverty is a key factor in which boys receive priority for education, lack of sanitation is  an issue also (Hawkin, 2017); it is estimated that girls in Kenya miss nearly 3.5 million learning days per month because of limited access to reliable hygienic sanitation and sanitary products (Jewitt & Ryley, 2014). Furthermore, girls most marginalized by menstruation are usually those already side-lined by poverty and usually without financial or geographical access to menstrual products like pads which exacerbates need for easy access to sanitation.


Good news is things are changing, the higher visibility of menstrual hygiene particularly because of the focus on girl’s education had given visibility to menstrual issues for example, studies like Plan International and Action Aid are both focusing on this issue bringing awareness among many international actors and articles Meghan Markle highlighting this within the media and has contributed to countries like the UK, to look inwards at the effects of menstrual stigma and lack of sanitary resources in the UK.