I’ve experienced how periods push girls out of school

By ANGELINE MURIMIRWA, Camfed’s Executive Director - Africa

If you live in a developed country, you probably take sanitary products for granted, but remember well the discomfort and embarrassment you or female students in your class faced at school when they were caught out, or a pad leaked. You may know children who occasionally miss a day at school because of severe discomfort. But imagine a situation where missing three to five days of school every month has become the norm for students — where sanitary protection is unaffordable, the toilets at school barely private, and menstruation itself is misunderstood and thus fraught with taboos.

Indeed, according to UNESCO, 10% of adolescent girls in Africa miss school during their period. They miss an average of 528 school days — nearly two years of learning…

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