“We weren't allowed to serve food to our fathers when we were on our period” | Women's rights

“When I was young, a girl who had her first period was afraid,” Burkinabè grandmother Marie, 73, tells her daughter Aminata and her teenage granddaughter Nassiratou, 18 – who calls her grandmother mother “Yaaba”.

The three women sit together under a tree in their village in west-central Burkina Faso, busy forming balls of seeds to make a condiment called soumbala. “The little girl's mother gave her a sheepskin to sleep on until the bleeding stopped,” says Marie. “At that time, girls and women were isolated during their periods. They washed their sheepskins and protective clothing daily, which is why in the Moore language we use the word “wash” to refer to the time of menstruation. »

In Paraguay, Maria, a 73-year-old grandmother, also shared her period experience with her daughter Ester, 51, and her granddaughter Alma, 16, Ester's niece. “Before, we didn't talk about it,” Maria said. “We had to deal with it in secret and there were no sanitary napkins or anything. You had to use rags, wash them and iron them.

Every day, around the world, around 300 million women and girls menstruate, according to a report from a group of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) advocating for investment in menstrual health. [PDF]. At the same time, one in four people lack access to menstrual health products or clean girls-only toilets, according to a report from the nonprofit Advisory Group for Social Change, FSG.

Some are forced to use materials such as old newspapers, rags, dirt, sand, ashes, grass or leaves to manage their periods – like grandmother Bui Non in Cambodia who, when she was little, used pieces of sarong as makeshift sanitary napkins. . “I cut the fabric into pieces,” says Bui Non, 57. “After a week, I buried or burned these tissues. »

Old taboos, stigmas and myths still abound in many rural communities around the world, with a culture of silence and shame often surrounding the issue of menstruation. Beninese grandmother Angel remembers that women in her era were not allowed to cook over a fire or serve food to their fathers if they were menstruating.

For Inna, a Togolese grandmother, things were even more difficult. “The family had to find a room on the side of the road where the menstruating girl had to spend all her periods. Then, the family alerted the entire village. Yet in many communities, girls are excluded from daily life and opportunities, including school, when they are menstruating.

Today, when girls are able to manage and talk about their periods, it is often thanks to long-standing community health projects working with girls and boys, women and men to encourage dialogue intergenerational in order to break down taboos and barriers in terms of menstrual health. “It’s a rights issue,” says Denise, Inna’s 16-year-old granddaughter, who – like all the teenagers cited in this article – is participating in one such community project run by Plan International, an organization humanitarian organization that works to advance the rights and equality of children. for girls in 80 countries around the world.

“Before, no head of family allowed a discussion session like the one we have today on menstruation in his family,” recognizes Aminata from Burkina Faso. “The change is evident today.”