Where Are The Sanitary Towels For Our School Girls?

In June 2017, President Uhuru Kenyatta signed into law a bill that allowed the government to supply school girls in Kenya with sanitary towels.

The sanitary towels were to be supplied to all schools in Kenya, both public and private to help “keep girls” in schools during menstruation. It became a requirement of the law.

Nonetheless, we live in a country where bills are signed into laws then kept in rooms to gather dust. They are laws in words but never in action.

Kenya is one country with the best laws on earth but the worst in implementing them. We spend so many resources in passing laws that we forget as soon as we pass them.

In Kenya, all laws are always good on paper but never realistic on the ground. It is like a curse. It is like we all have the brain of an old warthog that always forgets.

On average, girls in rural Kenya miss going to school for 4 to 5 days every month, and 1 to 2 months annually due to menstruation. This is different compared to their male counterparts.

Sanitary towels for girls in rural Kenya are a luxury for many households and the law was seen as the only savior for the girls. Families are torn between buying pads and food. They often choose food.

Two years down the line since the signing into law for the government to supply school girls with sanitary towels, nothing has happened and nobody seems to be giving a damn.

Girls are still missing going to school in most rural parts of Kenya due to menstruation when there is a law that requires that they are supplied with sanitary towels by the government.

In some counties like Busia and Bungoma, there are stories of girls having to exchange sex for pads, not because they want to but because they cannot afford it.

It is ironic that the Kenyan National Assembly has 47 Women Representatives from 47 counties who were elected to specifically represent interests of women in parliament.

It is ironic that Women Representatives in the National Assembly continue to loiter all over the country, politicking in the name of preaching peace when those they are supposed to be representing are suffering.

Has any female Member of Parliament stood on the floor of the House and asked why the sanitary towels are not being distributed despite it being a requirement of the law?

If there was anything to go buy, condoms are supposed to be sold but sanitary towels should be given free of charge. Using a condom is a choice but using sanitary towels for the girls is a MUST.

We are busy as a nation dishing out free condoms but cannot think, even for a day, to move the same energy in the distribution of sanitary towels.

Just recently, some members of parliament were busy discussing of how to lower the consent age from 18 years to 16 years, practically putting young girls in danger of becoming young mothers.

They have time to discuss the consent age but have no brain of asking why the government is not following the law in distributing sanitary towels to schools.

Where are the sanitary towels?

Read Also: Is the Nation Ready for a Lower Age of Consent?