I also contacted Kimberly Clark, producers of the Kotex pads. So here's a multi-billion pound market waiting to be tapped presumably P&G and J&J had something to say about it? After two brief email exchanges and a couple of phone calls I got nowhere.
Instead they use "synthetic cloth, ash, sand, dry leaves, cow dung, newspapers and even polythene… anything and everything that will absorb ," says Anshu Gupta, the founder of Goonj, a social enterprise which distributes cloth pads to India's poorest women. As the producers of India's two leading disposable sanitary pads, Whisper and Stayfree, I was interested in hearing what their business strategy was for India.Īfter all, there are around 355 million women of menstruation age in India, of which the vast majority don't use disposable sanitary pads (yet). So why not switch to disposable sanitary pads? I contacted Procter and Gamble, and Johnson and Johnson for this article. Taboos that would be farcical if the consequences weren't so dire. They are barred from the kitchen, temples, mosques and, bizarrely, from pickle-which they're told will rot if they touch it. These same women are often considered impure while on their period. As his aunt wasn't promiscuous, he thinks it may have been poor menstrual hygiene that led to the infection.Ĭloth sanitary pads are reusable and more environmentally friendly than disposable pads. "Cervical cancer is mostly spread by the HPV virus, which is sexually transmitted," says Malani. It was in fact, the death of Malani's aunt, from cervical cancer, that motivated him and his brother to start Shecup. In 2012, a report by the World Health Organisation's Globocan project found that one woman died of cervical cancer every seven minutes in India. Read More: When Your Period Tries to Kill You All with the same mission: to address and remedy the country's complicated and complex attitudes towards menstruation. Numerous NGOs, government campaigns and social enterprises have sprung up in the last five years. India is currently experiencing something of a menstrual health enlightenment. Visit Shecup's Facebook page and you'll find plenty of stories like Paravi's: women whose lives have been transformed after discovering the menstrual cup.Īnd it's not just the Shecup.
BLOOD MONEY CRACK HOW TO
"For this girl, the impending dread was over how to manage her periods once she'd moved into her new home with her husband and his family," explains Ashish Malani, co-founder of India's first menstrual cup, Shecup. Menstruation is so taboo in India that for many women and girls, including university-educated ones like Paravi, being on the rag is a recurring, real-life nightmare.
0 kommentar(er)
