For many African girls, menstruation means humiliation

Menstrual hygiene has emerged as a serious, and often emotional, subject in Africa, where some experts say governments must supply free sanitary pads to schoolgirls who often are at risk of dropping out because of embarrassment.

The issue recently became politically charged in Uganda when a prominent academic was jailed for calling President Yoweri Museveni “a pair of buttocks” after the government broke a promise to provide free sanitary pads to schoolgirls across the country.

Last month, Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta signed a law authorizing his government to supply sanitary pads to teenage girls at public schools nationwide.

Stella Nyanzi, a research fellow at Uganda’s Makerere University, faces criminal charges after she accused the country’s first family of being out of touch with ordinary people when the government said it couldn’t afford to donate sanitary pads.

“Girls and young women are not going to stop menstruating in the near or far-off future,” Nyanzi’s campaign, dubbed #Pads4GirlsUg, told reporters after she was released from jail in May.