Govt needs to invest more to end period poverty - FemConnect
Asonele Kotu is the founder of FemConnect, which is a digital platform that enables easier access to period poverty support. She said that period poverty affected more than 3.7 million women every year.
CAPE TOWN - Scores of people are preparing to take to the streets of Cape Town and Pretoria on Friday to call for an end to period poverty.
They’ll be handing over memorandums at Parliament and at the offices of the Department of Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities, in Pretoria.
Asonele Kotu is the founder of FemConnect, which is a digital platform that enables easier access to period poverty support.
She said that period poverty affected more than 3.7 million women every year.
The aim of Friday's peaceful marches is to call for an end to period poverty, the regulation of menstrual health rights, and the provision of free sanitary pads.
Kotu said that participating organisations wanted government to change current legislation that did not acknowledge the very real problem of period poverty in this country.
She said that South Africa currently had more than three million young women struggling to get access to sanitary products.
"It goes beyond distributing of free sanitary pads. We need to educate girls about mental health and hygiene, we need to integrate health systems, so that people with chronic illnesses that are related to menstruation can also be able to get access to supportive facilities," Kotu said.
Kotu said that they were also calling on government to investigate the state of water and sanitation in some communities and how this affected women's ability to practice cleanliness and good hygiene while menstruating.
