A group photo including school girls who received handbags containing menstrual hygiene products. | 17th June 2022 |Photo credit: Doru Peninah/Eye Radio.

Lack of proper menstrual hygiene products and services forces school-going girls to stay at home during their menstruation phases, says the head of a youth-led organization.

Florence Michael, who is the director of Shabab Le Shabab Organization said most girls in the country do not have access to menstrual service and end up missing classes for days during their monthly periods.

“At least girls miss classes five days every month, due to menstruation because when they are menstruating and sometimes they don’t have proper product or they don’t have access to menstrual services,” she said.

On Friday, residents of Juba commemorated the Menstrual Hygiene Awareness Day under the theme; ‘Committing to action on Menstruation.’

The day is celebrated annually to advocate, break taboos, and raise awareness on the importance of menstrual hygiene management for women and girls.

Speaking at the event Florence said girls are in most cases performing poorly due to missing class every month for at least five days.

“Our periods differs, some people go for five days, others go for three days and some people go for four days so you end up staying at home for all this time and you miss classes,

“And sometimes you end up failing the term or even the whole year and repeating class and you feel like you are dump and sometimes you end up dropping out of school because that,” said Florence.

This, she asserted, is in comparison with the uninterrupted time and freedom exercised by their fellow male colleagues.

“You miss lectures so your performances is not equal to the boys who are in school 24l7 attending classes without missing or any other lecture or teaching and your performance will not be the same.”

She stated that, Shabab Le Shabab has taken note of the need to take menstrual hygiene products and service to schools.

“So we realize there is need for at least making menstrual hygiene products and services available in schools to keep girls and boys equally participation in school.”

Meanwhile, one of the students which Eye Radio choose to refer only as Susan echoed the need for basic of extra pads in schools.

“The pads are really very important things, they may help us in school if we have our menstruation we may not be going home because of the pads,” she said.

Susan added that when pads and changing places are provided for girls in the schools, they will not be dejected from attending lessons.

“If the pads will be there in the school then we may go and change then we continue with our lessons so they are really very important that they help us to attend our classes while we are in menstruation,” she said.

Menstrual Hygiene Day is an annual awareness day to highlight the importance of good menstrual hygiene management at a global level.

Shabab Le Shabab is a consortium of Youth Led and Youth Focused Organizations focusing on sexual reproductive health, and rights.

It also focuses on Sexual Transmitted Infection (STIs), Gender Equity and other cross cutting issues in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in South Sudan.