How Young Girls Are Ending Period Poverty in Brazil
Girl Up activists fundraising efforts were converted into over 600,000 pads. Image provided by Girl Up Brazil.
Amid supermarket aisles crowded with toiletries, a sudden feeling of shame invaded my 11-year-old self. Packages in different shades of pink made me blush. I softly whispered to my mom: “Can I wait for you outside?”
The embarrassment I felt at the sight of pads was paralyzing. I was told those period products would be part of the next few decades of my life. At the height of my pre-teen years, nothing was scarier. Going to school would no longer be the same. What if I bled through my clothes? What if I had cramps during class? What if there was no toilet paper in the bathroom? Such thoughts occupied my head and prevented me from concentrating during lectures or playing freely on the playground. Yet, I kept these concerns to myself. Emotional distress became a monthly companion to my period. The constant fear that my menstruation might lead to public humiliation in the school environment prevented me from fully participating during academic lessons.
Everlasting taboos were responsible for causing the anxiety that I and millions of other Brazilian girls felt and continue to feel even today. Beyond the exorbitant cost of period products—which often prohibits low-income people from purchasing pads—menstruating students suffer from an absence of usable bathrooms at schools. Broken sinks and toilets. No soap or toilet paper. Our youth deserve better. Amid such a harsh social context, menstrual awareness entered the radar of teen activists around Brazil, and young Brazilian girls started to pursue structural change. Period poverty—defined as the lack of period products and menstrual education people face both at home and at school—was preventing them from achieving many of their dreams. Their academic performance was deeply impacted by this problem. Learning opportunities were robbed from them due to gender-specific inequalities. Now, however, young feminists are dreaming of ending menstrual poverty. Starting in 2019, 11- to 19-year-old activists led efforts to create legislation around this issue in over 40 cities and 8 different states. This September, national bills were approved both by the Lower House and Senate. However, Jair Bolsonaro—Brazil’s current president—vetoed. Consequently, Brazilian girls are left wondering: have advocacy and educational efforts been lost?
Menstruation once exacerbated the gender educational gap but is now revolutionizing how girls learn. They are not only changing entire communities, but are also realizing their changemaking power. Back in 2020, Girl Up—a UN Foundation initiative to foster gender equality—developed menstrual education campaigns all over Brazil. The hashtag #absorventeurgente (#urgentpad) empowered girls to raise menstrual awareness in their communities. Hundreds of period poverty workshops were organized and over 600,000 pads were distributed. “We were able to see firsthand the impact of our actions. However, we soon realized that these campaigns served as bandages to a flawed system,” stated Helena Branco, Girl Up Brazil teen advisor, in an interview with the Columbia Political Review. For these bold advocates, one question remained: how could they escalate their efforts against period poverty? According to studies conducted in low and middle-income countries, more than 50 percent of girls continue to experience period poverty. Currently, 60 million Brazilian citizens menstruate.
Helena Branco, 19 years old, posing with period products donated to low-income communities. Image provided by Girl Up Brazil.
“Although [Brazilian] women were not familiar with menstrual poverty as a concept, this did not prevent them from suffering from it,” explained Branco. The need to address such an issue holistically became evident given its multidimensionality––public health, education, and economic development are all variables impacted by poor menstrual hygiene management. This problematic reality acts as a catalyst for gender inequality. From lacking infrastructure to societal misconceptions, comprehensive public policy-making was the solution found by Helena and her allies.
Girl Up activists Amanda Menezes, Beatriz Diniz, Clara Albuquerque, Maria Fernanda Marins, and Lívia Estevam contacted Rio de Janeiro’s state senator Renan Ferreirinha in order to advocate for the inclusion of tampons in cestas básicas, a bundle of basic goods given by the government to low-income people. Soon enough, they developed a successful law bill from scratch. Lei 8924/2020 became the first Brazilian legislation to combat period poverty. Grassroots organizing shortly followed their regional triumph, creating opportunities for young women to teach their peers how to implement effective public policies in their own communities. While writing legislation, girls became authors of brighter futures for themselves. Experiential learning and community-centered approaches were at the center of their activism. Menstruation empowered these young women to occupy politics.
Their work began to transform a context in which menstruation had previously precluded quality education. Menstrual poverty is associated with school absenteeism. Research studies conducted in Pernambuco state demonstrated that 31 percent of female students missed class due to menstruation. Many reasons were linked to this behavior, but one is particularly concerning: schools do not provide basic necessities for menstruating people. First, over 650,000 girls cannot access usable sinks and washbasins in their schools. Second, 1.25 million female students do not have toilet paper at their disposal in school bathrooms. Third, 3.5 million menstruating people study in schools that do not provide soap to wash their hands after using the restroom. In addition to these alarming statistics, schools are inhibited by law to use the already insufficient hygiene items budget to buy pads. Girls are left adrift. The lacking school infrastructure can, therefore, lead to girls' regular school absenteeism, which further increases the gender education gap.
According to cross-sectional studies, menstrual education awareness along with free sanitary pad distribution is the most efficient solution. Aware of this fact, young Brazilian girls started lobbying and change was made. Mayors across the country implemented menstrual poverty relief programs. Recife, the capital of Pernambuco, was the first city to implement an initiative that, beyond distributing menstrual products, will train public school teachers on menstrual education. From the understanding of the menstrual cycle to demystifying vaginal bleeding, students will be able to take ownership of their menstrual health or better understand their peers’ needs. After Recife’s success and with the exponential growth of girls’ activism, education departments and governments across the country instituted programs to promote access to menstrual products for students.
Conscious that girls reported missing school four times more frequently when they were in their period, Marcelle Persant led the development of Livres para Estudar (Free to Study). The initiative contains three pillars. First, it focuses on welcoming the student. The vulnerability resulting from menstrual poverty is tackled through the distribution of period products. Second, workshops on self-love are administered in order to teach menstrual education. Lastly, students are mobilized to get involved in leadership activities against period poverty in their own communities. Persant saw the program’s methodology as a powerful way to decrease school dropout. Girls recovered their dignity to learn. She highlights that young activists were essential in grassroots mobilization efforts. Girls were also present in the ideation of the entire project. “I had the opportunity to work directly with a 17-year-old during the program,” Persant states. Bringing distinct backgrounds to politics has great effects: it showcases problematic realities obscured by taboos. Community-centered approaches such as the one applied in Livres para Estudar must be replicated around Brazil.
Livres para Estudar program launch. From left to right: Fatima (regional school coordinator), Renan Ferreirinha (secretary of education in Rio de Janeiro), Lucimara (school principal), Eduardo Paes (mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Tabata Amaral (congresswoman representing São Paulo), Marcelle Persent (project coordinator). Photo provided by Marcelle Persant.
One is left wondering why state officials began to propose solutions to menstrual poverty only now. The answer lies in the fact that Brazilian politics is marked by centuries of misogyny and machismo. Given that Brazil's Senate only received its first female bathroom in 2016, discrimination against people who have periods showed its signs even at the nation's capital. Now, with increased numbers of female politicians and women activists, menstrual rights gain prominence. However, it is not an easy process. Systems of exclusion have, for centuries, prevented women from accepting menstruation as a natural and recurrent event. The constant fear and imminent feeling of embarrassment girls possessed when menstruating at school showcases this. Around the world, we can also observe patterns of oppression concerning girls’ periods. In the UK, 48% of young women feel ashamed when they are menstruating. In India, 71% of girls are unfamiliar with the concept of menstruation. In Colombia, 45% of girls are unaware of the origin of menstrual blood. Brazilian citizens exist in an extremely similar context. Given this, debating menstruation brought hidden prejudices and misogyny to light. Why were tampons not considered hygiene items by the government, a designation that would lower taxes on the products? Why have condoms been freely distributed at primary care facilities since the 1990s, but pads are not? Why does society just accept the fact that low-income women in Brazil have to use bread crumbs as tampons? Women’s needs were never a priority.
Although period poverty affects thousands of Brazilians every month, activists and politicians faced intense backlash when defending measures to provide menstrual education and period products. “Misogynistic attacks, bigoted talk, and fallacious budget calculations were recurrent when we introduced the project last year,” stated congresswoman Tabata Amaral, who was elected in 2018 at age 24 with the sixth-highest vote count in the State of São Paulo. She pioneered the proposal of national bills to tackle this problem. After a year invested in increasing awareness, 15 law projects were brought together with a common purpose: providing an environment so every girl has her right to dream without limits. “The symbolic power of a young activist’s testimony in Congress is tremendous. This humanizes the statistics we are discussing,” said Amaral in her interview with the Columbia Political Review. However, increased media and political attention to girls’ activism also fueled the spread of fake news. For example, minister Damares Alves declared that the country needed to choose between buying COVID-19 vaccines or pads. When there are not enough women to advocate for their needs, harm is perpetuated. Civil society and female politicians must press for progress. “The fact that menstruation is still a taboo demonstrates that period poverty affects everyone,” stated Branco.
Harvard University magna cum laude and the second most voted congresswoman in the 2018 Brazilian elections, Tabata Amaral. Photo provided by Tabata Amaral.
Quantitative and qualitative evidence, however, was not enough to convince president Bolsonaro to approve the legislation to combat period poverty. Congress will again debate the issue and they have the opportunity to overrule Bolsonaro’s veto. This is a call to action: civil society must ensure its elected officials will stand up for women’s rights. Politicians across the political spectrum should be pressured to ensure the implementation of comprehensive policies. Menstruation cannot limit girls’ achievements. Regardless of this voting result, numerous awareness campaigns and regional bills have already been effective in beginning to tackle the issue of menstrual stigma. Nowadays, I do not feel the desperate need to hide my pads when going to the bathroom. I proudly hold them in my hands, knowing that my period is not only natural, but powerful.
Luiza Vilanova studies Political Science and Education at Columbia College. A proud Brazilian, she wholeheartedly believes in girls' power to change the world.