A summary and reflection of this article:
On 11th September, a fourteen-year-old Kenyan schoolgirl took her own life after being humiliated by a teacher for leaking and staining her uniform with period blood at school. She had no menstrual products available to wear to school, and when she inevitably soiled her clothes, her male teacher called her “dirty” and sent her out of the classroom. Her mother stated that she came home, explained what happened, went to fetch water, and took her own life.
What is shocking about this news is not only the fact that menstrual shaming caused a young girl to be so humiliated that she felt she no longer had a reason to live, but that it occurred only a few months ago. Despite the law Kenya passed in 2017 to provide free sanitary towels for schoolgirls, shaming and isolation due to mishaps during a girl’s period is still extremely prevalent and destructive to the life of a growing, maturing female. As a person living a very privileged and sheltered life, it is difficult to visualize the depth and complexity of GEP’s issues as we may be shielded from incidents like this. Seeing the headline, “Kenyan schoolgirl takes her own life after ‘period shaming’” was sobering because it related so closely the issues we target within the work of our service. It makes me realize that these are the girls that we are working to help save by eradicating the taboo around periods, ensuring all women have access to sanitary products, and that those products are sustainable and reusable. She is not the first to have suffered at the hands of menstrual shaming and period poverty, but GEP hopes she will be within the last.
This incident is heartbreaking and terrifyingly familiar. But it only further solidifies the fact that what we are fighting for in Generation Education Period is more necessary now than ever.
