MARGARET * WAS 13 when she agreed to sleep with a man who approached her for sex in exchange for money. Her period had started and it was the only way she&rsquo;d be able to buy sanitary pads.&lsquo;In the classroom, boys were laughing at my skirt as the blood had soaked through,&rsquo; she tells Grazia. &lsquo;This man was in the road, seducing and persuading me as I was on my way to school.&rsquo;Now 14, Margaret, who lives in Embakazi, just outside the Kenyan capital Nairobi, says thinking about the incident makes her feel ill. &lsquo;I was afraid. He used me, harassed me and touched my body and then paid me 150 Kenyan shillings [&pound;1.15]. When I remember it now, I get a stomach ache.&rsquo;Sadly, Margaret is only one of many girls and young women in Kenya who are forced into sex to access sanitary products. New research by UNICEF shows 58% of women in rural Kenya reported that sanitary pads were unaffordable. They also found 7% of women use old cloths, chicken feathers, mud and newspapers in place of pads or tampons. Some even dig a hole in the ground and sit there for days, waiting for their periods to finish, such is the shame, stigma and public health misinformation that surrounds menstruation.In Western Kenya, 10% of young adolescent girls admitted having transactional sex for pads. Joy * is one of them. She was 14 when her periods started and thought she was sick because she felt too ashamed to ask her mum what it was. &lsquo;I felt my period was shameful and feared my mum would think my virginity was broken,&rsquo; she says.In fact, periods are so taboo that a report funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation found that only 50% of girls feel they can openly discuss them at home.Joy, now 15, soon started sleeping with men to make money for sanitary products as she felt too ashamed to ask her family to buy them for her. &lsquo;It&rsquo;s traumatising. I don&rsquo;t like thinking about it. [The men] treat me very badly.&rsquo;She gets 200 Kenyan shillings (&pound;1.50) each time she has sex with a man, which can buy two months&rsquo; worth of pads. &lsquo;One man I slept with was a neighbour. I&rsquo;ve been approached by friends who are boys and men. I fear telling my father or brother about my period. A lot of girls have experienced what I have experienced. Seven of my friends have exchanged sex for money to buy pads.&rsquo;Agnes Makanyi, UNICEF &rsquo;s Kenya water and sanitation specialist, says young girls can miss up to four days in a month of schooling because of their period. &lsquo;This engagement in transactional sex also often leads to the girls getting pregnant early and thus dropping out of school,&rsquo; she says. &lsquo;Most girls resort to this because their families are not able to afford sanitary towels due to poverty. Parents often prioritise other pressing needs, such as food and school fees. Overall, these issues greatly affect the well-being of the girls.&rsquo;The men involved in this behaviour are often neighours, taxi drivers, community members or fishermen, explains Catherine Kimotho, UNICEF &rsquo;s Kenya child protection specialist.To help the girls who experience exploitation and try to effect societal change, UNICEF provides psycho-social support, menstrual hygiene management (MHM) education &ndash; for both girls and boys &ndash; community dialogues, peer-to peer counselling, MHM handbooks for teachers and the development of national MHM policies and strategies. Additionally, the Kenyan government has led an initiative to provide free sanitary products as part of primary and secondary education, which has reached more than 11 million girls since 2011.&lsquo;Now there needs to be continued and sustained awareness on what the girls are going through,&rsquo; says Catherine.

The Young Girls Forced Into Sex For Sanitary Products

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