The true cost of period poverty for street children
Release Date: 04/26/2022
Stories from The Street
In the new episode of our podcast, we revisit the theme of birth registration and hear more from Toybox’s partners around the world who are working with us to support as many street children as possible to obtain their official identity documents and birth certificates. Excitingly, we also hear from some of the children themselves in El Salvador, Nepal, Kenya, Guatemala and Bolivia. They tell us more about what their lives were like before they officially existed as well as the obstacles they encountered, before hearing about the changes they are experiencing in their lives now they have...
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info_outlineIn India, almost 23 million girls drop out of school each year once they start their period. (BBC 2020).
In this episode we speak to Sanjay Gupta, Founding Director of CHETNA in India. Sanjay talks us through the everyday challenges faced by girls living in the slum communities in Delhi when it comes to managing their period. Where there is a lack of clean toilets and privacy, poor access to running water, plus stigma and taboos to be tackled, CHETNA has been actively taking on the challenge of what girls on the street have asked them for support with – period poverty. CHETNA has been engaging with local girls and their families to provide them with not just sanitary products, but an open forum to discuss and learn more about periods, good hygiene and looking after themselves, and combatting the stigma that exists around the sensitive subject of periods.
📖 Around the world, girls are missing 10-20% of school days because of their period (World Bank).
Ritu’s period came, there was no hope of buying sanitary pads – her mother had even scolded her for trying to buy them instead of rations. So, Ritu was forced to use old clothes. She says, “sometimes, we didn’t even have sufficient cotton cloths, so we had to use synthetic clothes instead which cause a lot of rashes. Even in these situations, I had to go to work.”
Get the full story from the streets here.
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