Girls at a primary school in Sheno, Ethiopia. In partnership with UNICEF, the Sheno Primary School developed a program to educate both girls and boys about menstruation — and provide sanitary pads. A new UNICEF report says that only 39% of the world's schools offer such instruction.
Zacharias Abubeker/AFP via Getty Images/Zacharias Abubeker/AFP via Getty Images hide caption “I wasn’t shy from the first time,” says Genet Birhanu of her job as a menstrual educator in Ethiopia. “I understand menstruation cycle is an old taboo,” she says, but “I’m not afraid” to talk about it. And she was fearlessly teaching the topic to both girls and boys, starting with fourth graders.
Only 39% of schools around the world offer this kind of education on menstruation, according to a UNICEF report released on May 28 – designated as “World Menstrual Hygiene Day” by the United Nations. To say there are many challenges for a menstrual educator is a colossal understatement. Sometimes, girls don’t have support for the most basic aspects of hygiene at school.
In sub-Saharan Africa, for instance, only 1 in 10 schools have waste bins in the bathroom to dispose of sanitary pads, the UNICEF report says. One in three Ethiopian girls wait until they go home after school to change their pads. Then there’s the stigma.
Teasing from boys is a major reason why girls in Ethiopia skip school during their periods, second only to pain from cramps, says Kalkidan Gugsa, social and behavior c.
