Ghana commemorates World Day of Menstrual Hygiene

Health News Thursday, May 30, 2019

Source: ghananewsagency.org

2019-05-30

Ghana joined the rest of the world on Tuesday to celebrate the International Day of Menstrual Hygiene.

World Health Day, which is a global platform for advocacy that began in 2014, is observed every year to promote good menstrual hygiene management practices and raise awareness of the challenges women face during menstruation.

It is about breaking the silence, changing the negative social norms around SWM, engaging policymakers in strengthening policy priorities and catalysing action for SLM at the national and international levels. subnational.

Ministry of Education, Ghana Education Service (GES) in collaboration with the Ministry of Women's Health, Children and Social Welfare, Ministry of Health / Ghana Health Service and the Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources organized the program.

The theme of this year's celebration was: "It's time to take action in the field of occupational health management", with a focus on action in the critical area of ​​education in health. health management.

The theme aims to advocate for policies and decisions to prioritize menstrual hygiene management, remove taxes on menstrual hygiene products, provide toilets suitable for women and men with Cloakrooms to ensure the safety and confidentiality of girls during menstruation and intensify education to reduce myths and misconceptions about menstruation.

Ms. Freda Prempeh, Deputy Minister of Women's Protection, Childhood and Welfare called on all parents to guide their daughters in the management of their menstrual cycles.

She said some of the girls lacked knowledge about menstruation and relied on acquiring knowledge from friends, teachers and other teachers, which was not the best. "Some unscrupulous men take advantage of girls sleeping with them after helping them buy a menstrual pad," she said.

She emphasized the need to empower girls during menstruation to allow them to have the confidence to go through this period.

"They should help them change the perception that menstruation is something negative, shameful, dirty and taboo like many cultures do, which causes emotional trauma to girls during their menses."

She added that two out of five teenage girls were excluded from social activities during menstruation because of the complication they had encountered. Ms. Freda urged parents to provide material on the rules and to educate their young girls on how to manage it by cleaning themselves well to prevent infections.

The deputy minister said that it is time for Ghana to start producing its own sanitary napkins, as the country has a lot of resources.

The deputy minister said the government was determined to provide facilities such as clean water, clean toilets and others in some schools to help girls manage their rules, provide drugs such as folic acid to cure their problem of anemia.

Ms. Gifty Twum Ampofo, Deputy Minister of Education, said that effective menstrual hygiene was essential to health and that it was essential to the good management of girls during this period.

The deputy minister said that menstruation was a natural thing and urged society not to stigmatize girls when they stained their robes during menstruation.

Nana Hemaa Adwoa Awindor, Executive Director of the Obaapa Development Foundation, a non-governmental organization, said her foundation would work to improve the management of girls during their period.

According to her, a study conducted by the Ghana Education Service revealed that the lack of communication about menstrual hygiene management affected girls' performance at school.

Professor Kwasi Opoku-Amankwa, Director General of the GES, said that his outfit attached great importance to the badual and reproductive health of adolescents and called on parents to educate their pupils before they were menstruating.