By Olatunde Ajayi
A Medical Practitioner, Dr Gbemisola Daramola, says poor menstrual education, both at home and in schools, remains one of the challenges facing the girl-child in Nigeria.
Daramola stated this at a sensitisation on menstrual hygiene, organised by an NGO, The Female Professionals’ Book Club, for selected secondary school students on Wednesday in Ibadan.
The sensitisation programme, themed “Discussion on Menstrual Hygiene: A Basic Health Right”, was held at Oba Akinbiyi Model High School, Ibadan, was in commemoration of the 2023 World Menstrual Hygiene Day.
The day is observed on May 28 of the fifth of the year, as menstrual cycle is averagely 28 days in length, with people menstruating averagely five days every month.
The medical expert noted that poor menstrual health and hygiene undercut fundamental rights, including the right to work and go to school, for women and girls.
Daramola said that most girls learned about menstrual period from their friends, rather than from the appropriate quarters, such as the mother and school teachers.
According to her, insufficient resources and facilities in schools, such as good toilet, water, soap and proper waste disposal facilities to manage menstruation as well as patterns of exclusion and shame, undermine human dignity.
“Findings show that many students do not have access to adequate materials to take care of themselves, thus leading them to using clothes, tissue paper and other inappropriate materials during menstrual cycle,” she said.
Daramola cautioned that poor menstrual hygiene could lead to infections in the genital parts and the entire body reproductive system, and result in social embarrassment as a result of offensive odour.
Also speaking, Founder of the club, Mrs Ezinne Ibe, said that the awareness was aimed at exposing the students to the importance of good menstrual hygiene and why mensuration should not be hindrance to smooth academic process.
Ibe noted that many students stayed away from school during their menstrual period because they could not afford good sanitary pads during their menstrual period.
She said that a total of 200 students were selected from seven different schools in Ibadan North Local Government Area to benefit from the pilot phase of the programme.
Also, a member of the NGO, Mrs Sylvia Oyinlola, said that the sensitisation would eradicate the myths and taboos surrounding menstrual period.
Oyinlola urged the government to make adequate provision for good toilets, with constant water supply, in all the public schools across the state.
Commenting, the Local Inspector of Education (LIE) in Ibadan North council area, Mr Lukman Okesade, said that the programme would reawaken the zeal of the female students to read.
He urged the students to imbibe the reading habit in order to become relevant in future.
One of the students from Oba Akinbiyi Model High School, Adebisi Akande, said that the programme had increased her knowledge on menstrual hygiene management as well as how to prepare and keep clean and safe during menstrual period.
The programme featured distribution of sanitary pads to the students, lectures and question and answer session, among others
