Every year I choose a university student to accompany me on my win-a-trip journey, which is meant to highlight issues that deserve more attention. My 2024 winner was Trisha Mukherjee, a recent Columbia graduate and budding journalist — and with that, I’m handing the rest of the column over to her.
By Trisha Mukherjee, reporting from Pamplemousses, Mauritius.
When she was a teenager, Jossy Nation would collect water from a nearby river as the sun rose to wash the well-worn rags she used as sanitary pads, then lay them out to dry in a hidden spot.
But during the rainy season in her remote village in Nigeria, the fabric wouldn’t dry, and Ms. Nation, now 30, would be swallowed by panic. “I feel sick,” she said, recalling the stress of running out of usable rags. “Sometimes I have to use one rag for the whole 24 hours.”
Laser-focused on her education, Ms. Nation would push herself to go to school, even though some of her classmates stayed home during their periods. In class, she would shift uncomfortably in her seat, worrying that blood would stain her clothes and bring shame.
For millions of girls across Africa and Asia today, menstruation means staying home from school. Often, owing to a lack of period products, these girls miss up to a week of class every month.
For their families, pads are too expensive, too difficult to access or too taboo to prioritize over other needs. Even in the United States, where 20 states tax pads and tampons as nonessential, luxury items, one study found that nearly a quarter of teenage girls struggle to afford menstrual products.
In many developing countries, girls wedge rags, mattress shreds or newspapers into their underwear. In addition to causing infections, these substitutes tend to leak. Mired in stigma around menstruation, girls often end up skipping school rather than risk bleeding through their clothes in public.
“I’m not going to leave my house to go to school if I know there’s a 99.9 percent chance I’m going to stain myself,” said Goitseone Maikano, a recent university graduate who grew up in Botswana. I interviewed dozens of girls across East Africa about menstruation, and each of them echoed this sentiment.
In Nairobi’s bustling settlement of Mukuru, Celestine Wanza, 18, used to tear off a piece of her mattress to use as a pad, a workaround common in Kenya.
Ms. Wanza is charming, sharp and quick to speak up when her classmates are shy — the kind of student any teacher would want. For years, she stayed home while menstruating. But once she had to attend school for an exam. Blood seeped through the cloth shred and onto her clothes, sending her running home.
That day, Ms. Wanza decided she had had enough. Asking around, she learned of Huru International, a nonprofit that provides free kits of six thick, washable pads, along with panties, instructions and an odor-proof storage bag for when water is scarce.
She says her Huru kit changed her life. When I ask whether she still misses school because of her period — even one day a month — she proudly shakes her head no.
Some studies indicate that distributing pads, combined with menstrual health education, has increased school attendance. According to one study in Uganda, girls’ school attendance increased 17 percent. Other studies in Kenya, Uganda and India suggest that these interventions reduced girls’ dropout rates or improved learning.
But distributing pads in isolation isn’t a silver bullet. Rather, it may be effective when combined with education, improved toilet access, pain relievers, destigmatization and convenient disposal mechanisms; UNICEF estimates that two-thirds of schools globally don’t have trash cans for used pads.
We need more robust research into the most effective interventions.
Yet each girl I interviewed said that pads are a matter of dignity. When period poverty is sidelined, they feel like they are, too. “It’s not something that is optional,” said Mitchelle Monda, a student in Nairobi. “It’s a necessity.”
In rural southern Madagascar, I met a bright-eyed 16-year-old named Vola Liamarinee Florence, who hopes to be a midwife to help other women in her village.
But Vola confided that she feels like she’s falling behind in school because she misses around four days every month. Her mother buys pads in the nearest city when she can afford it. But those flimsy disposable pads, which Vola washes and reuses three times, tend to leak.
If someone gave her a magical set of leakproof pads, Vola said, she could pursue her dream. “I can go to school without worrying,” she said.
When I met Ms. Nation, she was working a busy tech job in Mauritius. She not only managed to stay in school but also graduated from college as valedictorian of her class.
Ms. Nation now lives near supermarkets stocked with shelves of pads, but access to period products is constantly on her mind. “Because I couldn’t get it before, I now see it as a very essential part of my life,” she said. “I see it before I see food.”
Ms. Nation regularly sends money for pads to her three younger sisters. And in a suitcase with her most cherished memorabilia — her first plane ticket, old photos — she keeps a rag she once washed and dried by the river, praying it would last her through the school day.
Every day, more than 300 million people are having their periods. But while many of us might thoughtlessly grab a pad, pop an Advil and head to school or work, millions of girls don’t have that choice. And until we take this issue seriously, they’ll continue to be left behind.
From Nicholas Kristof: Applications are now open for my 2025 win-a-trip contest. Undergraduates and graduate students at any American university are eligible; the winner will travel with me on an expense-paid reporting trip to highlight neglected issues. The winner may, like Ms. Mukherjee, have the chance to write for The New York Times. Information about how to apply is at nytimes.com/winatrip.
