In a State where a sizeable portion of female population is devoid of basic facilities to maintain menstrual hygiene, efforts to improve reproductive health care system get a setback.
According to the National Family Health Survey-4, only 39.9 per cent women in the rural areas of Jharkhand use sanitary napkins and sanitary tampons during their menstrual periods.
Despite widespread advertisements on sanitary napkins to which the urban women are exposed to, 77.9 per cent women make use of the hygienic methods whereas there are 22.6 per cent of women who are still either not aware or despite being aware have not adopted the hygienic menstrual practices in the State.
Notably, amidst the lack of consciousness especially among rural women NGO Udyogini in collaboration with Boond has taken a step forward to introduce menstrual cups as a measure for more and more women to acquire healthy menstrual practices. Menstrual cup is a reusable sanitary-product which makes menstruation affordable for women even belonging to the rural areas. It is a beneficial alternative to the high- priced brands of sanitary napkins because it is a onetime buy product, which lasts up to 15 years. The campaign acknowledges sanitary -product as a utilitarian item rather than making it a far-fetched luxury item as done by most of the commercial brands. The campaign is meant to provide affordable as well as reusable sanitary –product to women whom economic constraints take a toll on.
Till now, the campaign has its reach in three districts of Jharkhand — Ranchi, Khunti and Gumla. The social mission of the campaign is to increase the base of healthy menstruating females in the rural areas and to not let sanitary-product become economically inaccessible for the impoverished women. So far, the campaign has reached out to 20,000 women beneficiaries. It aims to abolish the long-standing hazardous practice of women using cloth, jute bag, sand etc.