NEW DELHI — Faheem Rahman clutched his
stomach tight and winced in pain. When after a couple of minutes he could not
bear it any more, he shrieked, throwing his head back.
اضافة اعلان
Rahman, a 26-year-old restaurateur in the southern
Indian state of Kerala, did not fully grasp what he was signing up for when he
agreed to have the wires clamped below his navel. But now he knows, at least a
little, the pain that his mother and sisters deal with every month when they
have their periods.
“It was a horrible experience,” Rahman said. “I
could not concentrate on anything around me for as long as the cramps lasted.”
The simulation was part of a new campaign that aims
to tackle long-standing taboos around menstruation in India and raise awareness
of more effective hygiene products that can better protect women’s health.
In many Indian families, women, young and old, are
barred from the kitchen while menstruating or in some communities shunted to
“menstruation huts” with leaky roofs and no toilets. At a temple in Kerala,
tradition bars all women of childbearing age from entering, which led to an
intervention by the country’s highest court and violent pushback from
right-wing groups.
Such stigmas have left Indians, particularly men,
less educated about menstruation.
And in a country with one of the world’s largest
populations of young people, over half of women and girls ages 15 to 24 were
still using cloth for protection during their periods, potentially exposing
them to infections, a 2015–16 government report found.
The campaign in the Ernakulam district of Kerala,
called the Cup of Life, encourages women to use menstrual cups instead of cloth
or sanitary napkins. The small devices, made of latex rubber or silicone, are
cost-effective and reusable, solving the disposal problem that other products
create.
Its organizers also hope the campaign will help to
start a conversation. About how menstruation does not make a woman “dirty.”
About how there is no need to feel shame about the monthly cramps and hide them
from family members.
Dr Akhil Manuel, an official with the doctors’
association in the coastal city of Kochi, said he had come up with the idea of
promoting menstrual cups a couple of years ago as hygienic and environmentally
friendly. But just pointing out the advantages of them was not enough, he said.
“You also have to break social taboos,” he said,
“how to normalize social conversations around virginity and menstruation in a
conservative society like ours so that girls are not considered ‘untouchables’
when they are menstruating.”
In a joint effort by the Indian Medical Association
and the local member of Parliament, 1,000 men and women were trained to spread
the word on menstrual cups. A group of women, ranging from the very young to
the old, spread out on metro trains across Ernakulam to talk to people about
menstruation.
To take the conversation to men, Sandra Sunny, an
aspiring lawyer in Kochi, designed the #feelthepain concept for the campaign.
She said a doctor friend had suggested using physiotherapy tools to simulate
the cramps in men. An electric current passes through the simulator, which
initially feels like a vibration. As the intensity is increased on the machine,
the intensity of the “cramps” does, too.
“I had seen many videos on
YouTube where the same
method was used on men abroad,” she said. “I thought to myself, why can’t we do
it here also?”
As the campaign spread from fancy malls to colleges,
videos on social media showed men crying out in pain while strapped to the
simulator. Women laughed.
how to normalize social conversations around virginity and menstruation in a conservative society like ours so that girls are not considered ‘untouchables’ when they are menstruating.
To increase awareness, Sunny also helped set up an
art installation, with a take on Michelangelo’s “The Creation of Adam,” in
which one hand is holding a menstrual cup.
On a single day this week, 100,000 of the cups were
distributed free in Ernakulam. In a district with 900,000 to 1.2 million
menstruating-age females, it is a start, Manuel said.
The campaign intends to do follow-up work over the
next four months to ensure the success of the cups. In addition to helping
prevent infections, the cups are more environmentally friendly than sanitary
napkins, with a life cycle of up to 10 years.
Manuel said he saw promise when a young man grabbed
some cups to take home, calling it the “best gift he could give his mother”.
Rahman, the restaurateur, said he was a changed man
after his single bout with the simulator.
“I have so much
more respect for my mother, for my sisters,” he said. “It’s hard for them; that
much I know.”
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