By Maryam Abeeb
While celebrating the World Menstrual Day,WaterAid Nigeria has called on the federal government to focus more on the menstrual hygiene of girls by formulating direct and clear policies.
The project manager, WaterAid Nigeria, Nanbam Michael made this call during an interview with pressmen at the sensitization programme for schools girls in FCT, Abuja as part of commemoration of 2023 World Menstrual health and hygiene day.
The programme was organised by Federal Ministry of Women Affairs in collaboration with other non governmental agencies such as , WaterAid, UNICEF, PG, Yagazie Foundation among others for teenage girls in secondary schools.
She explained that the it is the right of girls and women to be adequately informed about menstrual hygiene.
According to her, WaterAid is supporting the Federal Ministry of human affairs as part of the national technical group working on the guideline for menstrual hygiene.
“Generally,, to start from why the Nigerian government needs to focus on this day. This day is recognized by the United Nations General Assembly as a human rights. It is the rights of the girls and women to have all information and materials for menstrual hygiene. And then for the government of Nigeria, they are committed to the SDG goals and the SDG goal especially called Six 6.2 to be precise that talks about hygiene and sanitation having access to hygiene and sanitation and then paying special attention to the needs of women.
“And their menstrual hygiene is one of that special attention to the needle. So the government of Nigeria says they are committed to achieving achieving the SDG goal they should be committed to this day. And then what kind of commitment are we expecting from the Government of Nigeria? We need to have policies, policies that have direct and clear instruction about what to do about menstrual hygiene.
She stressed that menstrual hygiene should not be taken for granted because if not well managed can cause vagina infection for the girls and it could lead to lifelong infection in terms of reproductive health.
Also, the Water Sanitation Hygiene, WASH specialist, UNICEF, Job Omonyi also disclosed that the multi cluster indicators for 2021 revealed thT about girls or females aged between 15 and 24 as high as 17% are not participating in active social economic activities as a result of the limitation placed on them by menstruation.
He noted that most girl find it difficult to join others whenever they are menstruating, and this makes them loose opportunity of learning and making income.
According to him, UNICEF is making efforts in providing information that will help in breaking the silence so that people don’t feel stigmatized, rather, they should be proud that they are not sick and that they are normal people.
Further speaking, Chairman of Yagazie Foundation, Kennedy Ezirim has called for more access to adequate facilities that will help menstrual management.
He noted that this will help reduce the mortality rates when it comes to women and girls, adding that in recent years a lot of lives have been lost people died as a result of improper menstrual care.
The Director, child development department, ministry of Women Affairs, Ali Madugu stressed that “We want to demonstrate how committed the ministry that because the ministry is committed in ensuring that every child, every child, particularly females get to make girl child. Most have the opportunity to have a good sanitary party when she is menstruating. And that can only be achieved. If we intensify our campaign as a tradition and bringing our partners together.
