Much has been assumed regarding sanitary pad usage in rural India. The general perception is that sanitary napkins are not available or affordable to rural women and girls.
A study was conducted by A.C.Neilsen and endorsed by Plan India in October 2010, which stated that only 12% of Indian women use Sanitary Napkins. The rest are using unsanitary methods of managing menstruation. Most CSR programs, NGO interventions, and even Government schemes are still based on this “12%”. What’s more, it is assumed that the rest 88% that do not use sanitary napkins must be using unsanitary means. According to National Family Health Survey, NFHS 2015-16, the numbers in rural and urban India are far higher than this.
The NFHS 2015-16 survey pegs the number of women using hygienic means of managing menstruation in India at 78% in urban areas, 48% in rural areas, and 58% overall. Today, nearly 6 out of 10 women in India have access to disposable sanitary napkins.
According to this survey, locally prepared napkins, sanitary napkins, and tampons are considered hygienic protection methods. There are wide variations in ‘sanitary products’ usage across different states, with Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Delhi as high as 90% and rural Bihar as shockingly low as 30%.
Only 37.52% of girls were aware of menstruation before attainment of menarche. The difference in the awareness regarding menstruation in urban and rural areas was highly significant.
Only 36% of girls in the urban and 54.88% of girls in the rural area used homemade sanitary pads and reused the same in the subsequent period. Satisfactory cleaning of external genitalia was practiced by only 47.63% of the urban and 37.96% of the rural girls. This study found differences in hygienic practices followed by adolescent girls in urban and rural areas.
More girls in the urban area were using sanitary pads than girls in the rural area, which is highly statistically significant. Ninety-nine (36%) girls in the urban and 146 (54.88%) girls in the rural area used cloth. Seventy-five (27.27%) girls in urban 81 (30.45%) girls in rural areas had changed the pads only once per day. 31.27% of urban girls and 71.42% of rural girls reused pads during menstruation.
Cleaning of external genitalia was satisfactory only in 131(47.63%) of the urban and 101(37.96%) of the rural girls.
How the Indian villages still lack menstrual hygiene
