By Liza Hessari
A girl’s first menstruation is often a bitter experience. The taboo in Afghanistan about talking openly about such a normal bodily function means that many girls do not know what is happening to them. That ignorance can lead to significant health and social problems.
Zarmina, 26, still feels distressed when she remembers her first periods. “I thought I was sick or did something wrong, because I had never heard of menstruation before,” she tells Zan Times. “I felt very embarrassed and ashamed. I spent two or three months in a very bad state. I was using an old cloth [to absorb menstrual blood]. When my period ended, I didn’t know what to do with it.”
Mursal, now 22, also didn’t know how to deal with her first period. “I was very stressed,” she recounts. “My heart was hurting and my condition was very bad. In one day I changed my clothes twice. Running out of clothes, I was even wearing men’s clothes.”
Also, Bibi Sara, who is now a student, says, “I was ashamed to tell my mother or my sisters. I used to cry every day and night,” Bibi Sara explains to Zan Times. “In the ninth grade textbook, there were discussions of physiology but the teacher said that we will skip that chapter as it was shameful to teach.”
For years, girls are not given information about menstruation. A 2018 Ministry of Public Health of Afghanistan report found that 50 percent of girls did not understand the basics about their menstrual periods. As a result, they can’t practice proper hygiene. More than 60 percent of Afghan girls used old clothes as makeshift menstrual pads, while 30 percent used new cloth, and just eight percent used commercial menstrual pads, according to a 2012 survey by the Ministry of Education in coordination with UNICEF. In addition, 70 percent of girls didn’t bathe during their period because of the false myth that they could become sterile.
Though the previous government’s Ministry of Public Health sought to educate women about menstruation, including offering lessons about menstruation in girls’ schools, many females in Afghanistan still don’t have enough information to properly care for themselves during their monthly menstrual cycles.
Menstruation: fact versus myth
Menstruation or period is a sign of sexual maturity, health, and proper functioning of a woman’s body, and it shows the capacity and capability of a woman’s body for fertility. While in traditional societies, the start of a menstrual cycle is considered a sign of adulthood, leading families and communities to start treating the girl as an adult, experts stress that they are still developing into adulthood.
In particular, there is no set starting age for menstrual cycles, which leads some to falsely brand those who get early periods as “shameless.” Dr. Batul Haidari, a psychologist based in Italy, sees the need for education to combat traditional and superstitious attitudes toward menstruation and to ground discussions in scientific awareness. “Unfortunately, girls who experience puberty earlier than other girls or experience menstruation earlier than their peers are called ‘shameless’ by their family, especially their mother,” the psychologist explains. In turn, girls learn to conceal this “shame.”
Vida, a mother of two daughters, has such a traditional attitude. She thinks that even telling her girls about menstruation ahead of their first experience will cause them to “become shameless.” “When they grow up, they will teach themselves what to do,” she says.
Physical and mental impact of the menstruation taboo
Lack of awareness about menstruation as well as a lack of services and medical care during menstruation can affect both the physical and mental health of girls and women.
Lina Hessari, a doctor of obstetrics and gynecology, says, “Lack of hygiene during menstruation creates a favorable environment for various infections, which can cause diseases of the urinary tract and genitals, including pelvic inflammatory diseases and gonorrhea,” explains Lina Hessari, a doctor of obstetrics and gynecology. In contrast, girls who are provided with accurate information about menstruation are healthier in their later reproductive life, notes Dr. Batul Haidari.
Some girls experience trauma during their first menstruation, especially if it occurs when they are in public. “Some girls spend the first day of menstruation with negative feelings such as fear, anxiety, and anger, and also experience embarrassment,” says Dr. Haidari.
For many, what little help they get comes from their mothers. Halima, who has six children, says she has learned to recognize the symptoms of when they are having their period, such as her daughters lying down due to stomach cramps. Still, they don’t talk about it. “I didn’t say anything to them, and they didn’t ask me anything either,” she explains
Now, experts fear the situation is deteriorating even more. By forbidding girls to go to school beyond grade 6, the Taliban has made it even harder for them to be educated about menstruation. That lack of education, combined with the collapse of medical and public health services aimed at women, means that more and more girls are going to suffer when they get their first menstrual cycles.
