Today, 76% of women and girls in Lebanon suffer from difficulty in accessing menstrual products due to the sharp increase in prices resulting from the economic crisis and the collapse of the Lebanese currency. A national statistical study carried out by Fe – Male in partnership with “PLAN international” sheds light on the reality of “Period poverty” in Lebanon. The study shows that 41% of women and girls from Lebanese, Palestinian and Syrian communities stated that they reduced the quantities of sanitary pads they used during their menstruation or relied on using the same pad for a longer period of time, because of the crisis.
One of the respondents to the study said: “I am using as few sanitary pads as possible, because of the economic situation and my inability to buy the number I used to, I use the same pad for too many hours.” Another woman declared that she “replaced the quality of the sanitary pads that I used with cheap and lower quality ones, which caused me and my daughter infections and allergies, and I can no longer buy the good quality, especially since my daughter and I need a large number of them per month.”
Unfortunately, Period poverty has become a reality in Lebanon, and it has many negative impacts and direct damages on the sexual and reproductive health of women and girls. Noting that this issue has direct negative impact on women’s dignity and leads to their increased sense of insecurity during menstruation.
This study comes within the framework of a national campaign launched by Fe-Male under the title “#Nashftolna_dammna” (English: We’ve Had Enough) to raise the voice about the negative effects of period/ menstrual poverty and its repercussions on women and girls in Lebanon, to confront the culture of marginalization of women’s needs during their period, especially that period poverty is considered to be superfluous in contexts rife with socio and economic crises where the rights of women and girls as well as their mental and physical health becomes secondary, and to stress the importance of finding long-term solutions by the Lebanese government and key stakeholders