Menstrual Hygiene Education and Sanitary Pads to Girl Students – Delhi HC issues notice to Government

According to reports prepared by the UNICEF and various civil society organisations, an acute deficiency in education, knowledge and sensitisation about menstrual hygiene, and the glaring unavailability of sanitary pads forces around 20% of India’s girl students to drop out of school when they reach the age of puberty. The problem is aggravated if the students are hailing from socially and economically disadvantaged sections of society..Contending that this severely impeded the students’ fundamental right to free and compulsory primary education under Article 21 of the Constitution, Setu Niket, a Delhi-based lawyer, has moved the Delhi High Court by way of a PIL praying that appropriate directions to remedy the situation be issued to the Central and Delhi governments..On 17 July, a Division Bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar sought a status report from the Central government, Delhi government and the civic bodies by November 7 on Niket’s plea..Numbered as W.P.(C) 5909/2017, the PIL was argued by Advocate Esha Mazumdar. While the Central government was represented by advocate Dev P Bhardwaj, advocate Sanjoy Ghose appeared for the Delhi government..In the PIL, Niket quotes studies and states that the average age of menarche among Indian women is 11-14 years, and contends that access to the fundamental right is hobbled because of the deeply-ingrained nature of the taboos surrounding menstruation and lack of access to free/subsidized menstrual hygiene products such as sanitary pads..Making it incumbent upon school managements to provide sanitary pads for free or at subsidized rates through easily accessible vending machines would bring down the incidence of diseases relating to menstrual hygiene, Niket contends in the PIL. All government schools should have a counsellor who would impart the necessary and appropriate education about menstrual hygiene to students once a month or once a week, he pleads the high court to direct..To buttress his contentions, Niket provides the example of the State of Kerala, which, this year, introduced the ShePad Scheme across all government schools. This scheme aims at providing free sanitary pads and tampons to all girl students who have reached the age of puberty and have started menstruating. Kerala has allocated Rs. 30 crores to implement this scheme..He also cites the example of Kenya which has recently incorporated the right to access free sanitary products as a part of the Education Act..Niket’s PIL prays for directing the governments concerned to formulate a National Level Policy to establish a mechanism to provide education, sensitization and ensure availability of menstrual hygiene products to adolescent girl students..The Court today issued a slew of directions to the Union and State governments after hearing the parties..It asked the Central government to disclose the working of Menstrual Hygiene Scheme, budgetary allocation as far as Delhi is concerned and the manner in which disbursement of hygiene products is made.It asked the Delhi government to file an affidavit informing the court about the implementation of Menstrual Hygiene Scheme under Rashtriya kishor Swasthya Karyakram. It also asked the Delhi government to disclose the manner in which it is undertaking educational programmes with regard to menstrual hygiene.The Court also asked the Central and State governments to submit details of schools which do not have toilets/ separate toilets for girl child.