Every month, Sadiya Maikasuwa, 40, is reminded that the cost of living crisis for her means more than high food prices. She now spends double what she used to on sanitary pads — a monthly expense she must prepare for. Until she started using sanitary pads some years ago, Ms Maikasuwa never worried about these expenses.
The mother of three said she has now reverted to her old ways. “I used sanitary pads before but it’s too expensive now. I have stopped using it,” she told PREMIUM TIMES at her neighbour’s home in Pegi, a community in Kuje Area Council of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
In the past year, soaring inflation, resulting from fuel subsidy removal and the floating of the naira by President Bola Tinubu, has created an economic crisis that has Nigerians groaning. The prices of commodities have more than tripled and inflation rose for the 11th consecutive month. In Aprilreaching the highest level in a generation at 33.
69 per cent, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). Meanwhile, about half of the country’s population is silently battling that crisis on another front: the prices of sanitary pads have more than tripled in the past year, worsening period poverty among Nigerian women of reproductive age. Statistics show that about 37 million Nigerian women and girls cannot afford essential menstrual hygiene products.
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