The objectification of women across the world is appalling. It’s like a barter trade, their bodies are being exchanged for food, clothes, shelter, and money. In the period of Menstrual Hygiene celebrations, our eyes glanced at a story shared on our girls in the Northern Region of Ghana by the PRO for the National Population Council, Solace Esi Amankwahby with Berla Mundi on the TV3 NewDay on exchanging sex for sanitary pads. It breaks our heart that at the slightest opportunity, our men want to use our girls for their selfish gains. These are innocent girls, excited to experience the use of sanitary pads but are unable to afford it.
Parents let get this straight: the information we are withholding from our girls are the same situations they fall victim to. In most communities, girls are trained not to resist even when it hurt them. Even in our schools, the glass ceiling form of education is ongoing. Under no circumstance should these stories go on, the power we’ve invested in our leaders is to allow them to make swift and appropriate decisions in higher places where the ordinary member of society cannot be. These are the things we want to hear our parliamentarians arguing about. In these communities, health centres are scarce and thus education is less.
It seems we enjoy naming some communities as places with a high level of teenage pregnancy. These are the things our girls face every day and it’s not new to our ears either. Let’s make the work of change easy for ourselves: there are places in Ghana that even if sanitary pads are accessible, the money won’t be available for purchase. Even in the urban centres, girls are thrown with the decision to choose between food and health. But sanitary pads are necessities in every girl’s life and she shouldn’t be made to worry about it. These are the things that should be included in our national budget: provision of more health centres and in these centres, adolescent health products such as sanitary pads should be made free and accessible to all.
We’ve been broadcasting this message for so long and we won’t relax on it until the change we seek is seen. Taxes on sanitary pads makes it difficult for accessibility to be possible. Exchanging sex for the sanitary pad is the peak of objectification we’ve subjected our girls to. Whiles saying all these, let it not be a shared story that dies off immediately it is heard. People who abuse our girls need to be punished so that the law would be exercised appropriately.
Going forward, let’s not subject our girls to painful experiences. We are all involved in making this right in every way.
TOGETHER WE CAN END THE PERIOD OF POVERTY!
#StarlightFoundation #MenstrualHygieneDay #MHDAY2021 #ItsTimeForAction #LetUsSaveTheWorldTogether #LetHerKnow #NGO #Girls #CommunityDevelopment
