World Menstrual Day: Stakeholders  advocate proper hygiene

By Mary Agidi
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As the World Menstrual Day was celebrated yesterday, stakeholders have called for advocacy to promote Menstrual Hygiene Management among school girls in order to prevent reproductive organ- related infections.

These stakeholders also called for free distribution of sanitary pads by philanthropists, and for government to subsidise the price of sanitary pads to be affordable to the girls to enhance menstrual hygiene.

Speaking at a sensitisation programme organised by Blissful Christian Home for Fiwasaye School Girls to mark the day,  the Vice-Chairman of Ondo State National Association of Women Journalists, (NAWOJ), Mrs. Doris Olumoko stressed the need for government to subsidise the price of sanitary pads, noting that some of these young girls can not afford the price of buying one, which led to the use of unhygienic pieces of clothes and tissue paper.

She noted that government should not always be distributing condoms alone, but should also be magnanimous enough to distribute free sanitary pads occasionally and subsidise its prices.

 A representative of the state Ministry of Education, Mrs. Modupe Odidiomo identified challenges and hardship faced by women while menstruating, and called for the formulation of health policy to prevent infection of female reproductive organs due to unhygienic menstrual practices.

She reiterated the readiness of the ministry to collaborate with the organiser to achieve hygienic menstrual period.

The organiser of the programme, Mrs. Esther Ayo-Oladapo noted that the Menstrual Hygiene Day is set aside to promote Menstrual Hygienic Management and to help break the silence and build awareness about the fundamental role that good menstrual hygiene plays in enabling women and girls to reach their full potentials.

The wife of the State Chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria, (CAN), emphasised the need for women to be given correct washing facilities, while the young girls are given the correct educational materials regarding the changes that will occur in their bodies.