Bleeding Life & Hope: Period Poverty, A Global Health Issue
By Maria Ziannis
This submission is part of a series by McGill students who were in the Fall 2024 course, Fundamentals of Global Health.
Introduction
The circle of life begins with menstruation. Without menstruating females, humanity would not exist, yet, menstruation remains overlooked and misunderstood. Affecting 2 billion females globally [1], this natural, healthy, unavoidable, and necessary biological process, signifying the transition to womanhood and the ability to procreate, imposes a financial, physical, mental, and emotional monthly cost uniquely borne by females that society ignores. Today, 25% of the global menstruating population (500 million [2]) experience period poverty. This global health issue demands collective and corrective action to establish equity and dignity for all menstruating females.
Period Poverty and Its Toxic Truth
Period poverty is the inaccessibility or inability to afford menstrual products, sanitation facilities, and education and awareness of menstrual health [1, 3]. Menstruating females experiencing period poverty are forced to improvise and resort to available, sometimes unhygienic resources, such as garments, toilet paper, newspaper, rags, mattress scraps, sponges, grass, and moss to absorb menstrual blood [1, 4, 5, 6, 7]. These resources pose health risks and can contribute to illness and infections [1, 8].
Even the 75% of menstruators who do not experience period poverty are living with a toxic truth. The majority of products contain harmful ingredients that compromise females’ sexual and reproductive health, as vaginal and vulvar tissues are highly permeable [2, 9]. These include carcinogens, reproductive toxins, endocrine disruptors, and allergens linked to health risks and issues, including cancer, hormone disruption, endometriosis, infertility, birth complications, neurological dysfunction, skin irritation, vaginal itching, infections, and asthma [2, 3, 9, 10, 11].
Given that females account for 49.7% of the global population [12] and menstruate for approximately 52% of their lifetime—roughly 40 years [13, 14, 15]—period poverty is a global health issue that must be addressed. This blog exposes the true cost of womanhood, focusing specifically on the inaccessibility or inability to afford menstrual supplies, and addresses the various causes of period poverty at all levels of society including government, private, community, and individual, while offering hopeful recommendations that do not punish females for being bestowed the power of the period.
The True Cost of Womanhood: Implications of Period Poverty
There is a multi-layered cost of womanhood affecting 2 billion females [12], 800 million menstruating daily [16], and 500 million experiencing period poverty [2]. Period poverty leads to adverse effects, amplifying gender inequality, female inequity, and the loss of dignity for menstruating individuals.
Financial Cost
· Economic Strain: The monetary toll varies depending on the country of residence and income. A box of tampons can cost as much as three month’s salary [17] and may not cover one five-day cycle [18]! Nonetheless, it is a mandatory expense, forcing menstruators to reallocate their money between essentials and menstrual products [6] or use period poverty fallbacks.
· Missed Opportunities: Without access to period products, many menstruators skip daily extracurricular activities and report missing school or work monthly, often leading to dropout and loss of income [2, 19, 20] and untapping their full potential.
Physical Cost
· Physical Health: Unhygienic practices and disposable toxic period products increase the risk of illnesses and infections contributing to various health issues [1, 2, 3, 8, 10, 11, 21].
Mental & Emotional Cost
· Mental Health: Stigma and shame impact all menstruators, contributing to poor mental health due to increased embarrassment and anxiety [2]. Those facing period poverty endure additional discomfort and psychological stress, making them more likely to develop or exhibit moderate to severe depressive symptoms [22, 23].
· Sexual Exploitation and Crime: Menstruators experiencing period poverty are more vulnerable to abuse and criminal charges. Transactional sex or stealing in exchange for sanitary pads is pervasive in low- and middle-income countries [5, 24, 25].
Breaking the Cycle of Period Poverty: Problems to Progress
Period poverty is the result of various factors at multiple levels. Identifying areas for change and highlighting solutions fosters hope, inspiring transformational actions. Below I suggest some calls to action we can all partake on to advocate against the negative impacts of period poverty.
Government-Level
The “Tampon Tax” imposed on menstrual hygiene products, which classifies them as luxury items, [1, 26], exposes gender inequality. Only 23 countries [27] (11.8% worldwide) have a zero-tax rate for period products. Meanwhile, elective drugs for men, like Viagra, are tax-exempt [1].
Call to Action: Unified advocacy should demand zero-tax on menstrual products. Through petitions, protests, lobbying, and social media awareness [28], period tax campaigns can successfully pressure lawmakers to apply tax exemptions. For example, Team Free Sanitary Pads (South Africa, 2017) and the Stop Taxing Periods campaign (United Kingdom, 2014) led to the abolishment of taxes in 2019 and 2021, respectively [18, 29, 30], proving effectiveness.
Private-Level
In 2024, the feminine hygiene market generated global revenues of US$49.75 billion [31] by producing and distributing poor-quality, toxic products at high retail prices. Companies’ myopic focus on the profitability of their products compromises the safety and well-being of menstruators, who have no choice in purchasing these products (when and if they can afford them) [32]. For example, 33% of menstruating adults in the United States struggle to afford period products [1]. So, either women cannot afford these products and must rely on fallbacks, or they can afford them and expose themselves to toxicity. This market is knowingly putting profits over people and holding menstruators hostage, where the price is their health (if they can pay) or their dignity (if they cannot).
Call to Action: Female hygiene brands must shift their business model to balance profitability and menstruators’ health by (i) creating toxin-free period products, (ii) ensuring equitable pricing by using market research, and (iii) increasing accessibility and affordability by implementing corporate social responsibility policies to donate free products.
Community-Level
Menstruation is often considered taboo, associated with stigma and shame, perpetuating discrimination and negative attitudes towards menstruating females [2]. Cultural stigma drives isolation, with menstruators being forced to sleep separately as they are seen as impure [19, 33, 34]. Also, social stigma fuels teasing [19], including comments like, “You’re sensitive. Are you on your period?” Furthermore, widespread shame contributes to misapprehensions and hostility, as seen in countries where a large percentage of menstruators feel ashamed [19], preventing them from embracing this biological process.
Call to Action: Education is essential to overcome period stigma and shame. The lack of menstrual knowledge among adolescents before their first period [1] decreases community interaction and increases insecurity, deepening confusion and shame. Communities, organizations, and global advocates like UNFPA must collaboratively strengthen menstrual education for young people worldwide. Normalizing and destigmatizing periods and supporting health systems to promote menstrual health and treat menstrual disorders [35] are necessary to foster self-confidence and self-acceptance and reject negative perceptions.
Individual-Level
Menstruators experience period poverty due to external factors. Low wages or unemployment make menstrual products unaffordable [1] for 25% of the global menstruating population. Another factor is the rural-urban divide [1]. Females residing in rural areas are less likely to use period supplies due to inaccessibility or inability to afford them [1]. Additionally, unawareness of menstrual hygiene practices perpetuates period poverty, evidenced by only 39% of schools worldwide offering education on menstrual hygiene [36].
Call to Action: Empowerment through personal development is needed to break the cycle of period poverty. Organizations like NGO Alphadev and UNICEF should expand their scope to train females to sew reusable cloth pads [20, 37]. The initiative empowers them by creating an income through job creation and making menstrual products more accessible [20, 37], addressing the negative consequences of period poverty.
Bleeding Hope: Breaking the Cycle of Period Poverty
In conclusion, 49.7% of the global population menstruates [12], using an average of 12,000 products [38] over 52% of their lifetime [13, 14, 15]. Nevertheless, 25% of menstruating females experience period poverty [2] due to various causes, such as gender-blind government policies, profit-driven companies, external and internal stigma and shame, and a lack of education. Period poverty is the single largest global health issue impacting half a billion women alone [2] while receiving little to no attention. Breaking the cycle of period poverty requires mobilizing hope and awareness with collective and corrective actions and initiatives to allow menstruators to experience their period with comfort, equity, and dignity. Females are not bleeding shame; they are bleeding life and hope.
Maria Ziannis
BA&Sc, majoring in Sustainability, Science & Society, is dedicated to tackling sustainability challenges by aligning business practices with sustainable and ethical principles. As a future sustainability practitioner with an integrative system-thinking mindset, her goal is to reconcile values, promoting practical, long-term solutions. Committed to deepening her understanding and raising awareness of how unsustainable practices negatively impact individuals, regardless of gender, she advocates for human rights and empowers others by instilling power and hope to inspire corrective action—because while individual actions may seem trivial, collectively, they make a significant difference. By fostering hope, Maria wants to encourage people to become agents of change to build and welcome an ethical and sustainable future.
References
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