NDC Ahafo Women’s Wing distributes sanitary towels to 2,500 adolescents

Ahafo Regional Women’s Wing of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) on Friday, distributed about 2,500 pieces of menstrual towels to basic school girls across the region.

According to the group, the donation was part of activities to mark this year’s World Menstrual Health (WMH) Day, which was held on last Sunday on the theme, “menstruation is part of life”, and also to promote quality girl – child education.

The WMH Day which is commemorated on 28th May of every year, is a day set aside globally to create awareness on menstrual hygiene of women and girls especially those in rural communities.

According to available statistics, about 500 million women and girls across the world, particularly Africa, lack the access to quality, hygienic, medically approved and very affordable sanitary towels.

Mrs Charity Gardiner, the NDC Ahafo Regional Women’s Organiser, in her remarks, said a lot of girls go through challenges to have menstrual towels, quality detergent and toiletries during their monthly menstrual period.

She bemoaned how girls in rural areas used rags, tissue, clothes and other unhygienic and unsafe materials in their period due to financial constraints of their parents and guidance.

The Women’s Organiser emphasised that most girls from deprived homes ended up with pregnancies after they demanded money from men and boys to buy sanity towels for their monthly period.

She noted that the party’s women wing in the Ahafo region decided to donate towels to these vulnerable girls, encouraged them to live confidently in their menstrual period and to erase all forms of myths and misconceptions about menstruation.

” menstruation is not a taboo. It is a natural occurrence in adolescent girls and women. I urge parents and guidance, teachers, media practitioners, religious leaders and other educators to come out boldly to discuss it” Mrs Gardiner stated.

The Women’s Organiser appealed to government to make sanitary towels very affordable through the removal of taxes on the product, providing incentives to towel producing companies and other internal interventions.

She solicited the support of individuals, groups, corporate executives, local and international Non – Governmental Organisations (NGOs), to partner their vision to provide quality sanitary towels to every girl in the Ahafo region.

Mrs Gardiner expressed gratitude to the Members of Parliament (MPs) for Asutifi South and Asunafo South constituencies, Alhaji Collins Dauda and Mr Eric Opoku, and other individuals and groups for supporting the activities of the party’s women wing.

Source: Emmanuel Adu Gyamfi, Goaso -Ahafo