Menstruation and School Girls in South Africa: An Intervention Study

In South Africa, girls often face difficulties during menstruation, including access to hygiene products. It has been hypothesized that lack of products can lead to low school attendance. The Teddy Bear Clinic, in Johannesburg, works with high school aged girls utilizing a sexual violence education curriculum. During their programming, they implemented a menstrual cup distribution and education intervention in the hopes of increasing school attendance and comfort at school during menstruation. Survey tools were created in order to measure the results as well as conducting semi-structured interviews. Contrary to the hypothesis, the results indicated that girls in their programs were not missing school but faced other challenges during menstruation, such as shame and embarrassment while menstruating at school.