Issue Brief

In several regions throughout the world, many obstacles hold young girls back from receiving a good education. One such obstacle is the lack of access to menstrual products, making it difficult for girls to attend school during their periods. However, a current trend in menstrual hygiene management has seen multinational feminine hygiene companies teaming up with nongovernmental organizations and United Nations agencies to address these challenges worldwide. As a multinational corporation with companies in the feminine care market, Procter & Gamble has taken on a leading role in this trend by exploring philanthropic menstrual management-related work in sub-Saharan Africa. Procter & Gamble can make an even bigger impact on girls’ education internationally by extending its Always Keeping Girls in School program to Latin America, specifically to the countries of Haiti and Guatemala.

P&G has worked to provide a better future for schoolgirls through the Always Keeping Girls in School program. Since 2005, the program has provided puberty education and Always sanitary pads to schoolgirls in impoverished communities to reduce their school absences and improve their self-confidence (Procter & Gamble). Through this program and many others, P&G has structured their activities around their “instrumental and principled goals: expanding their markets, building their brand, and adhering to a social responsibility ethic that included a commitment to educating girls about their bodies (Sommer).” Procter & Gamble has also sponsored training programs that teach girls about their body and provide an introduction to the solutions that can be used to manage menstruation. This philanthropic work in menstrual hygiene management has helped Procter & Gamble build a brand image dedicated to global responsibility. Procter & Gamble is not only a successful global corporation, but also a business willing to fight for gender quality worldwide. This program has reported donating over eight million sanitary pads and has managed to reach more than 150,000 girls in South Africa and Kenya (Procter & Gamble).

With this in mind, the Always Keeping Girls in School program creates a precedent that Procter & Gamble should employ in other regions of the world, specifically Latin American countries like Haiti and Guatemala. In recent years, menstrual hygiene management has been primarily focused on disadvantaged communities in African countries. However, this public health issue reaches across all hemispheres, including communities in Haiti and Guatemala. Ever since the 2010 earthquake, Haiti has been left in a crumbling state. As reported by Save the Children, up to 130,000 children are no longer in school following the destruction from the earthquake. These children are often exploited and harmed if they are not protected by nonprofit organizations efforts. With parents earning about $2 a day on average, girls usually only stay in school for about seven years on average in Haiti. In Guatemala, the average daily income is around $9 a day while girls usually only stay in school for about ten years (Save the Children). By extending the Always Keeping Girls in School program to Haiti and Guatemala, P&G would be able to establish new markets while also raising awareness for menstrual hygiene management as a global public health concern that extends to communities around the world.

The Always puberty education program has been involved in sixty-five countries throughout North America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East with goals to (a) expand accessibility to sanitary pads; (b) provide information regarding the best hygiene solutions and puberty education to the children and the educators; (c) challenge misconceptions and cultural taboos about menstruation in order to draw attention to the stigma that surrounds

menstruation and the effect that the humiliation has on adolescent females’ education; (d) develop long-term solutions by getting policy makers in education and health involved in the mission (UNESCO). This existing program has worked as both a marketing tool and as a socially conscious endeavor. Based on research in Tanzania in 2006, the Always Keeping Girls in School program is the only source distributing information regarding puberty education and menstrual management to several communities. Procter & Gamble and Always are gaining brand awareness within these communities and countries while helping the society. By providing the supplies and the education, Procter & Gamble is able to help the girls in the impoverished communities grow into educated young women with better employment opportunities and higher economic statuses. At this point in the women’s lives, they would be aware of and trust the Always brand, thus building a potential market for the Always products in these communities around the globe. By producing low-cost pads in communities in Tanzania, Procter & Gamble’s market share also increased as the girls benefited from the products and the education programs (Sommer).

The Always Keeping Girls in School program has proved to work in Africa. Now it is time to extend it to Latin America, showing that menstrual hygiene is a global public health problem. Since P&G’s resources are not boundless and can only be exhausted to a certain point, some may argue that P&G should keep its focus on helping communities in Africa overcome the problem for the time meaning as academic studies have also primarily focused on the issue of menstrual hygiene as it impacts Africa. However, the corporation can partner with nonprofits to increase the available resources in these regions just like it has in African communities. For example, P&G has already partnered with the Save the Children organization in Africa, and Save the Children is also active in countries throughout Latin America including Haiti and Guatemala.

This problem affects communities worldwide and needs to be addressed as a global health problem. Girls living in impoverished communities throughout Haiti and Guatemala are just as disadvantaged as the girls from impoverished communities in Africa and Asia. On average, girls in Kenya and India stay in school for about eleven years, and girls in Tanzania stay in school for about nine years. Seven years is the average length of schooling that girls in Haiti receive. Girls in Guatemala stay in school for about ten years (Save the Children). The only difference is that there is more research and studies conducted about menstrual hygiene management in Africa then in Latin America.

Living in communities where menstrual hygiene products, like pads and tampons, are scarce and/or costly has proved to be a real challenge for girls when it comes to pursuing an education across the globe. At least 3/5 of school-aged girls in Kenya’s primary and secondary school system miss about 5 days of school every month. Their absence is due to their lack of the appropriate products that would allow them to continue attending school during menstruation. That means the girls miss about two months of math lessons and science experiments, history lectures and reading exercises each year (UNESCO). Missing two months each year adds up and leaves the school-aged girls falling so far behind their male counterparts that they are unable to catch up. Based on estimates from the Days for Girls organization, 30% of girls in rural Brazil, 1 in 10 girls in sub-Saharan Africa, and about 113 million school-aged girls in India miss a portion of school each year due to a lack of materials that could help manage their periods (Days for Girls). A study conducted in 2013 in northeast Ethiopia with 595 randomly selected school-aged girls also provides significant statistical evidence about this problem. It found that more than half of the participants missed school during their monthly period, while 56.05% of the participants explained that they missed school during this time because the menstrual hygiene products were inaccessible to them. Other reported reasons included pain or embarrassment experienced during their menstruation period. The study also found that almost 25% of the participants knew a girl who dropped out of school because of challenges she experienced with attending during menstruation periods (Tegegne). This study highlights the challenges that many girls in developing countries face after experiencing their first period. It also displays the effects to their education if they don’t have access to the appropriate hygiene products or puberty education.

The lack of menstrual hygiene products that has become a problem in these communities is due to the cost of the solutions. With 1.5 billion women of reproductive age alive on the Earth, about twenty percent, or 300 million, of these women have to get by on less than $1.25 per day (Days for Girls). This means that not only do they have difficulty obtaining basic necessities like food and water, but they are also unable to purchase enough menstrual hygiene solutions. As a result, 15 to 30-year-old women in the world’s poor communities have roughly one less year of schooling than the men in their same economic and age groups (Olinto).

Once communities or organizations step in and intervene with the problem, the attendance of the school-aged girls improve. 120 school-aged girls from four villages in Ghana participated in a small pilot study. The study provided three possible treatments the participants could receive: (1) puberty education and sanitary pads, (2) only puberty education, or (3) nothing. After treatment, the variable that was tested was the participants’ school attendance. Based on this study, the attendance of the 12 to 18-year-old participants increased by 9% after five months or the ones receiving the puberty education and sanitary pads combination (Montgomery). Within this study, 98.4% of the participating schoolgirls reported that they felt that they were better able to pay attention at school after being presented the menstrual hygiene solutions. 96.8% of the schoolgirls said that their self-confidence increased during their period when they wore pads (Days for Girls).

The time to help the schoolgirls in Haiti and Guatemala is now. By forming coalitions with nonprofit organizations like Days for Girls and Save the Children, Procter & Gamble can become a leader in menstrual hygiene management in Latin America. The education programs already exist and successfully function in African communities, providing both marketing benefits to P&G and educational benefits to the schoolgirls. By extending these programs to Haiti and Guatemala, Procter & Gamble will be able to demonstrate that it is a globally and socially responsible corporation to its customers and to the world. It will also help draw attention to the problems schoolgirls face across the world in regards to menstrual hygiene management by extending its programs to Latin America.

WORKS CITED

Days for Girls. "Days for Girls International." Sustainable Feminine Hygiene. Days for Girls International, 2017. Web. 02 Apr. 2017.
Montgomery, Paul, Caitlin R. Ryus, Catherine S. Dolan, Sue Dopson, and Linda M. Scott. "Sanitary Pad Interventions for Girls' Education in Ghana: A Pilot Study." PLOS ONE. Public Library of Science, 31 Oct. 2012. Web. 02 Apr. 2017.
Olinto, Pedro, Kathleen Beegle, Carlos Sobrado, and Hiroki Uematsu. "The State of the Poor: Where Are The Poor, Where Is Extreme Poverty Harder to End, and What Is the Current Profile of the World’s Poor?" Economic Premise 125 (2013): n. pag. The World Bank, Oct. 2013. Web. 2 Apr. 2017.
Procter & Gamble. "Always Keeping Girls in School." Social Responsibility. Procter & Gamble, 2017. Web. 02 Apr. 2017.
Save the Children. "Latin America." Save the Children. Save the Children Federation, Inc, 2017. Web. 02 Apr. 2017.
Sommer, Marni, Jennifer S. Hirsch, Constance Nathanson, and Richard G. Parker. "Comfortably, Safely, and Without Shame: Defining Menstrual Hygiene Management as a Public Health Issue." American Journal of Public Health 105.7 (2015): n. pag. Framing Health Matters. American Journal of Public Health, July 2015. Web. 02 Apr. 2017.
Tegegne, Teketo Kassaw, and Mitike Molla Sisay. "Menstrual Hygiene Management and School Absenteeism among Female Adolescent Students in Northeast Ethiopia." BMC Public Health. BioMed Central, 29 Oct. 2014. Web. 02 Apr. 2017.
UNESCO. "Puberty Education & Menstrual Hygiene Management." Good Policy and Practice in Health Education 9 (2014): n. pag. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, 2014. Web. 2 Apr. 2017.