Madam Esinam Tekpor, the South Tongu District Girls Education Officer, has called on parents and guardians to normalise talks around menstrual health management to boost the adolescent girl’s confidence to stay in school. She said parents should not shun having conversations around menstrual hygiene with their children since that could boost the adolescent girl’s confidence about the changes in her body and manage her menstrual hygiene well. Madam Tekpor said this in an interview with the Ghana News Agency to commemorate the Menstrual Hygiene Day in the South Tongu District of the Volta Region. Menstruation had been an inevitable part of the female body hence the need to educate the girls on how to manage it, she said. ‘It is the right of every woman to have access to clean menstrual sanitary materials and the adolescent girl must know the hygiene aspect of whatever material she is using during her menstruation,’ Madam Tekpor said. ‘The girl child has to know the hygiene aspect of what she is doing and not to think she is just collecting blood with anything.’ ‘Whatever she is using to cater for herself during this period has to be clean and free from diseases.’ Madam Tekpor said if the adolescent girl got to know about her menstrual health, she would be confident to carry herself around, knowing she had protected herself and would not be intimidated to the extent of not going to school. ‘Some people still believe in myths and misconceptions about menstruation, and this can only be changed if parents and guardians made their children and wards, respectively, aware that menstruation is a normal part of the female system.’ She admonished adolescent girls to adhere to safety measures in taking care of their menstruation and should not be coerced to believe the myths about menstruation. The Menstrual Hygiene Day is to create awareness on menstruation management. This year’s celebration is on the theme : ‘Making Menstruation a Normal Fact of Life by 2030.’ The South Tongu District, as part of the celebration, would distribute menstrual hygiene materials at selected schools throughout the week.
Source: Ghana News Agency