Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Lockdown hits sanitary pad supplies in India

WITH rains pounding her village in eastern India this week, Neelam Singh weighed the options; walk several miles through the jungle to buy sanitary pads or cut a strip from one of her mother's old polyester saris.

The 18-year-old used up her last pad during India's weeks-long coronavirus lockdown, which campaigners say has eroded hard-won progress on menstrual hygiene, forcing many women to go back to using scraps of unsuitable cloth or dirty rags.


Supplies of sanitary products ran low across the country during the lockdown, making them too expensive for many girls and women at a time when millions lost their livelihoods.

"Cotton cloth is expensive and a lot of girls in my village use synthetic, but it leaks and is not comfortable. I don't know what I'll use when I get my next period," Singh said.

"There's no pharmacy in the village where I can buy pads," she said by phone from eastern Jharkhand state. During the lockdown, she was too scared to walk down the deserted jungle path to stock up at the nearest market.

While the government listed sanitary pads as essential goods during the coronavirus shutdown and asked local health workers to distribute them in rural areas, delivery has been patchy.

Activists fear years of steady gains to improve access to sanitary products and fight "period poverty" - achieved through raising awareness and breaking taboos in government departments and schools - could be rolled back.

"Girls in the last few years had started buying pads or had started asking their mothers for them in both urban and rural areas," said Bharathy Tahiliani, who drafted menstruation lesson plans for schools in western Maharashtra state.

"There is regression now. There are no field interventions, no mentoring or hand-holding," Tahiliani said. "We've lost ground."

RAGS AND LEAVES

Indian women face many challenges during their periods, especially in rural areas, where a lack of awareness and the cost of pads mean many instead use unhygienic methods, including rags and leaves, increasing the risk of infections and disease.

Nearly 60 per cent women in the age group of 15 to 24 do now use hygienic methods to manage their periods, according to India's most recent health survey.

In the last few years, India has started distributing sanitary napkins in schools, installed pad vending machines in villages, boosted production and scrapped taxes on pads.

Meanwhile, classrooms began sessions on menstrual hygiene and Bollywood made its first film on periods in 2018 to break taboos around the subject and boost awareness.

However, a survey last month by Menstrual Health Alliance of India - a network of NGOs - showed lockdown closures of schools and community centres had severely hit access to sanitary products.

Campaigners working with women and girls in rural areas, urban slums, brothels and shelters for rescued sex-trafficking survivors said that while there was a critical need for pads, they had become the lowest priority during the pandemic.

India's women's ministry said the government had undertaken "a number of measures to ensure local availability of sanitary napkins to women and girls at affordable prices".

More than 6,000 state-run pharmacies were selling napkins for 1 rupee (about $0.01) and more than 14 million were sold between March and May under a government scheme, a ministry spokeswoman said, adding that adequate stocks remained.

Campaigners distributing groceries among poor families said women often rummage through the food bags looking for pads.

'FOOD, NOT PADS'

When Aqsa Mushtaque, 25, a relationship manager at an Indian online classifieds company, got a call from her maid saying she did not have money to buy sanitary pads for her daughter, she went out and ended up distributing scores of them in slum areas.

"The women in the house don't get any pocket money. And they don't like telling their husbands about their periods or pads and they find it much easier to use cloth," she said from the eastern city of Kolkata.

Some women in rural areas also feel conscious while using sanitary napkins for the sound the adhesive strip makes when removed from their underwear, especially during the lockdown when male family members are also all at home.

"We never thought privacy could be an issue," said Murari Choudhary, director of Network for Enterprise Enhancement and Development Support, an alliance of charities working on sexual and reproductive health and rights.

"When we started manufacturing reusable pads, we had to replace the adhesive with buttons so there is no sound when they change."

More often than not though, scarce housekeeping funds mean women put sanitary pads at the bottom of the shopping list.

Gautami Gade, 26, who was studying in the western Indian city of Pune, stopped using cloth during her periods six years until the lockdown forced her to return to her village in Solapur.

"I have started using cloth again," she said. "If we have 30 rupees, I would spend it on food, not pads."

More For You

Randhir Jaiswal

India's External affairs ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said trade or tariffs were not discussed in any conversations between Indian and US leaders during the clashes with Pakistan.

India rejects US claim that trade offer ended clashes with Pakistan

INDIA on Thursday said trade did not come up at all in discussions between Indian and American leaders during its military clashes with Pakistan, rejecting Washington’s claim that its offer of trade halted the confrontation.

US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick told a New York court that India and Pakistan reached a “tenuous ceasefire” after president Donald Trump offered both nations trading access with the US to avoid a “full-scale war.”

Keep ReadingShow less
General Sahir Shamshad Mirza

General Sahir Shamshad Mirza, Pakistan's chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said the two militaries had started reducing troop numbers. (Photo: Reuters)

Border troop reduction near, Pakistani general says amid India tensions

PAKISTAN and India are close to reducing troop levels along their border to those before the latest conflict began earlier this month, a senior Pakistani military official told Reuters on Friday. He cautioned, however, that the recent fighting had raised the risk of escalation in the future.

Both sides used fighter jets, missiles, drones and artillery in four days of clashes before a ceasefire was announced.

Keep ReadingShow less
Royal Air Force chief charts inclusive course for service

Sir Richard Knighton

Royal Air Force chief charts inclusive course for service

SIR RICHARD KNIGHTON sits at his desk with a simple motto that has guided his remarkable career: “Work hard, do the best you can, enjoy every minute.”

It’s a philosophy that has taken him from a schoolteacher’s son in Derby with no military connections to becoming the first engineer ever to lead the Royal Air Force as Chief of the Air Staff.

Keep ReadingShow less
War elevates Pakistan army’s public standing

A billboard featuring General Syed Asim Munir , Naval Chief Admiral Naveed Ashraf , and Air Chief Marshal Zaheer Ahmed Babar Sidhu, along a road in Peshawar

War elevates Pakistan army’s public standing

POPULAR support has surged for Pakistan’s army chief General Asim Munir, the most powerful man in the country, after the worst conflict in decades with India, shattering criticism of interference in politics and harshly cracking down on opponents.

A grateful government gave him a rare promotion last week to field marshal “in recognition of the strategic brilliance and courageous leadership that ensured national security and decisively defeated the enemy”.

Keep ReadingShow less
Russell Brand

Russell Brand leaves Southwark Crown Court after entering not guilty pleas

Getty Images

Russell Brand pleads not guilty to rape and sexual assault charges involving four women ahead of 2026 trial

Russell Brand, once a regular on TV screens and now a high-profile online figure, appeared in a London court on Friday and denied all allegations of rape and sexual assault. The case, involving accusations from four different women, will now move towards a trial scheduled for 3 June 2026.

The 49-year-old, known for his past work in comedy and film, as well as for his recent outspoken online presence, faces five charges: one of rape, one of oral rape, two of sexual assaults, and one of indecent assault. The alleged incidents happened between 1999 and 2005, a time when Brand was climbing the ladder in Britain’s entertainment industry.

Keep ReadingShow less