For this toolkit, I also wanted to share my own case study, The Kanya Project. As a quick overview, In 2015, we started a project where we installed a sanitary napkin making factory in a rural village in India. We then employed women from the village to work at the factory and make sanitary napkins that they can then sell at an affordable price in the surrounding areas. Using the profits from those local sales, we donate free sanitary napkins to the school age girls to allow them to hygienically manage their period and hopefully go back to school.

Unfortunately just a few months after opening, we had to close down our first factory. However, I learned so much from the experience and we are well on our way to overcoming these barriers and helping even more girls go back in school.

For now, let’s get into what some of these barriers actually were.

Cultural Barriers

Firstly, we have to look at the cultural barriers that we faced. The biggest one we faced was the predetermined gender roles that are heavily present in rural India today. Often, men are seen as the people who will go out and work and earn money while women will stay at home and take care of the family. Many people, counter to my own beliefs, thought that women should not be in the workplace so we found it difficult to find women able and ready to work in the factory.

Even moreso, menstrual hygiene is a forbidden topic that virtually nobody wants to talk about in rural India. Even today, menstruating women cannot go into certain parts of the house, are often “period shamed” by their elders, and cannot go into a temple. Some of these I have even experienced myself.

Political and Legal Barriers

When we first started the work in 2015, sanitary pads were heavily taxed in India. Under the Goods and Services Tax, more commonly known as GST, sanitary pads were taxed at 12%. Unfortunately for the consumers, sanitary pads that were made at our factories were taxed at that rate as well. Fortunately, this tax was removed in 2018.

The tax on raw materials did not change so for local manufacturing facilities, this tax removal meant that the profit from each pad was lower. Even more unfortunately for us, we were not making enough of a profit to donate napkins to the local school girls. Eventually, importing pads became a cheaper option and many local manufacturers, including the Kanya plant, had to shut down because of it.

Economic Barriers

Community Barriers

I have already talked about the local stigma surrounding menstrual hygiene, but it is definitely worth mentioning again because it is SUCH a big issue in the area we worked in.

Some of the community barriers we faced were that girls are usually not allowed to travel far distances alone or too late in the day because it is seen as unsafe. In the area we worked, and many other surrounding areas, there was no transportation method available.

So, in order to go to school, the campus had to be close enough that the girls could walk to and the students needed to be let out early enough that they did not have to walk in the dark.

Conclusion