‘I won’t be ashamed’: Nigerian women fight ‘period poverty’

For years, whenever Veronica Ogar’s period began, she would grab a piece of old cloth she kept for the purpose, fold it into layers, and stuff it into her underwear. Over the following days, she would keep to herself, avoiding the local market where she earned a living – her makeshift pad was barely fit for purpose – instead taking a financial hit while her period lasted. 

“If I risk going to the market and my clothes get stained, I would be the joke of the whole community,” she says, highlighting the societal pressure common in the region. It had never occurred to her she even had a choice. “It’s what I had been told to do from when I was child,” she adds, speaking in Nigerian Pidgin English.

Across the globe, millions of women and girls continue to be punished, or even endangered, when they have their periods. Not only do they lack access to facilities and products to manage their periods with dignity, they also have to navigate entrenched community stigma and sanctions.

The first time Ms. Ogar experienced menstruation, she hid in her room in the house where she lived with her aunt in the northern Nigerian state of Kaduna. 

“I was confused and didn't understand why I was bleeding. I had never heard the term ‘period’ before and so didn’t know what it was,” she recalls. Eventually, a neighbor persuaded her to come out of her room. 

“She ... sternly warned me to avoid men, especially during my menses, as being around them will get me pregnant,” Ms. Ogar recalls. “I had the impression that [menstruation] was something that makes me unclean, and one should be ashamed and hide.” 

Period poverty pandemic

Period poverty – a lack of access to menstrual education, products, or hygiene facilities, which leads to the inability to manage periods with dignity – has long been widespread in Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation. 

Now, a burgeoning cost of living crisis has worsened matters in a country where more than 40 million women – more than the entire population of Canada – live in extreme poverty, Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights campaigners say.

For years, Ms. Ogar was among the 37% of menstruating women in Africa’s most populous country who couldn't afford safe, hygienic menstrual products. Now, soaring inflation, in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic, has pushed the price of a packet of menstrual pads from 250 naira ($0.60) two years ago up to 1200 naira ($3), beyond the reach of many even in middle income brackets. 

“Understanding that about 82 million Nigerians survive, both in terms of feeding and all other expenses, on less than a dollar a day puts that problem into better perspective,” says Adebisi Yusuff Adebayo, Director of Research and Thought Leadership, a multinational NGO that has branches in Nigeria and other African countries.

But Nigeria’s period poverty crisis is not just due to economic pressures. It's also borne of a lack of information, which comes at a steep price. In response, Nigerian rights campaigners are finding innovative ways and local solutions to tackle a global problem in their region.

From rags to self-made pads

One morning in May, 50-odd women sat down under the shade of a baobab tree in Ijegu, a small community in Nigeria’s southern state of Cross River.

In front of them stood a woman called Goodness Ogeyi Odey, who alternated between pointing at a large chart and using a stick to draw on the dusty ground.  

Soon, she had sketched a diagram that explained how hormones trigger the menstrual cycle. Next, she asked those gathered to share some of the things they had heard about periods. Almost every woman had a story about feeling fear, shame, or ostracism when they had their period. And for almost all, it was the first time they were hearing a scientific explanation of what happened to them each month.

Ms. Odey helps run the Edupad Yala project, a campaign that aims to demystify myths around menstruation and trains rural women on the production of reusable menstrual pads. The project has so far taught around 1,000 rural residents how to make pads with easy-to-source materials like absorbent cotton, fabric, buttons, needles, and thread. 

The whole exercise is tailored to take into account local realities. The science is explained in a way that’s entirely free of jargon. Since the women are often busy doing manual labor to keep the entire house running, the process of making the pads is designed to be taught in a single half-hour lesson, Ms. Odey explains. And, most importantly, it doesn’t require manuals or tools – meaning it can easily be passed on to new learners. 

“One of the girls in our last training held a training of her own for her church members after we left her community,” Ms. Odey says. 

Others organizations are stepping up, too. Alora Pads, a local socially-conscious company, recently began mass-producing affordable reusable pads in the country.

No more shame

Each time Ms. Ogar passes the needle through a piece of crossed-shaped cloth she had pinned to a chair, the young mother of four beams with pride. After about 15 minutes of sewing, she backstitches the fabric, cuts the edge with her teeth, and raises up her creation like a trophy: She has just made a reusable pad. 

Ms. Ogar, who was one of the women at the Ijegu meeting, says the training gave her the opportunity to unlearn long-held myths she carried since childhood – and had passed down to her own children. 

Nigeria’s Minister of Women Affairs, Pauline Tallen, says that the cost of such misinformation and societal pressure often carries lifelong repercussions. “This ... will, in the long run, be borne by women and girls, and will definitely affect schoolgirls across Nigeria.” 

The impact is often subtle. Joy Inyima, a secondary school student in Yahe, in Cross River state, isn’t among the 10% of girls across sub-Saharan Africa forced to miss school due to their period. But a traumatic early experience still haunts her. 

“I still remember the first time I saw my period. I was here in school. I stood up to get something when everyone behind me burst into laughter,” she says, still distressed as she recalls that it took huge consolation and pleading from her parents for her to return to school. 

Now, she says, she chooses to stay away from school during her period, risking falling behind. Teachers and students alike seem to accept this as the norm.

For others like Ms. Ogar, education may have come late. But it has been empowering. 

“I will [keep] making my own pads and using them,” she says, adding that she will no longer misses market days. “I have learned that periods are not unclean, and it is not something I should be ashamed of – and I won't be.”