Cultivating our many farms
The secondary education improvement loan storm that shared the media spotlight last week with the petrol crisis and Ghana’s World Cup fiasco, to me was as bewildering as it was sad.
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Undoubtedly the cause of the storm was more the free sanitary pads component of a World Bank loan of US$156 million for a ‘Ghana Secondary Education Improvement Project’ than anything else. The loan, approved by Parliament on July 3, includes the construction of senior high schools (SHS) and three years ‘scholarship support’ for 10,400 SHS students, especially girls.
Part of the support is the proposed supply of free sanitary pads or sanitary towels to adolescent girls from deprived homes that has generated much controversy, disapproval and ridicule in some quarters.
According to media reports, the Minority in Parliament, the New Patriotic Party (NPP), stridently opposed the approval of the loan, notably the 15.9 million US dollars for the ‘scholarship support’. The NPP stressed the need for further scrutiny and due diligence before approval and thus did not take part in the voting.
Addressing a press conference earlier this week, the NPP Member for Dormaa Central and Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, Mr Kwaku Agyeman-Manu, expressed fears that the money “is likely to end up in private pockets” and asked the Bank to reappraise the loan.
Of course the insistence on due diligence with loans is commendable. If this loan needs to be reviewed or should be rejected for sound reasons, fine. But what seems to be coming across is that it is the sanitary pads part fuelling the vehement disapproval.
I’m bewildered by the furore because I can’t understand why a critical assistance to needy girls in deprived communities to help them stay in school is being treated so dismissively by some people. Strangely, some men even argue that lack of sanitary pads can’t make girls stay out of school. How do they know this?
Apparently it has few supporters, but in my opinion free sanitary pads for poor schoolgirls is a very laudable, progressive idea; an important strategy to push them up the educational ladder.
I’m saddened by the hostile attitude of some commentators. And, unfortunately, some radio presenters, my media colleagues who should be in the forefront of speaking for the vulnerable, are treating the initiative frivolously, as a big joke embellished with vulgar comments.
However, I do have one concern, stated in this column some time ago: the lack of toilets in some schools. What about the schools that don’t even have toilets where the girls can change their pads?
Even makeshift toilets would be better than none at all, because menstruation – sanitary pads – toilets/changing facility are interlinked. Toilets are a necessity in this assistance and must be added!
In a statement issued by the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, the Minister, Nana Oye Lithur, lists other items included in the support for the deprived: payment of school fees; examination fees; transportation to and from school; uniforms and house dresses; physical education kits, school shoes and bags and exercise books.
Mrs Lithur said research findings show that investing in girls’ education and ensuring that adolescent girls are supported during their first years of sexual maturity have a direct positive impact and increase their chances of staying in school.
Also, UNESCO estimates that one in 10 African adolescent girls stay away from school during their menstruation and some eventually drop out altogether because of inability to obtain sanitary protection.
One of the main criticisms is that currently the country is in economic straits and the Government is finding it difficult to honour even its statutory payments, so the sanitary pads money should go into other areas. Some have based their criticism on the argument that it is the duty of parents to buy sanitary pads, so a government loan should not be used for that.
Is it not equally the responsibility of parents to buy school uniforms, shoes, bags and books for their children in school? And what about the bus fare to and from school – is that too, not a parental responsibility?
The issue of sustainability has also been raised, how the support can continue after the three years project duration. Why can’t the project start and the lessons learned from its implementation be factored into plans for its continuation?
Or could the disparagement stem from the traditional view of menstruation as a taboo subject, not to be mentioned in public, and hence sanitary pads cannot be linked to the Ghana Government? But other countries, such as Kenya, and even individuals, see sanitary pad availability to the poor as a vital development factor.
In this paper’s issue of May 2, 2014, this column paid tribute to an Indian man, Arunachalam Muruganantham, dubbed ‘the Indian sanitary pad revolutionary’ in a BBC Magazine feature. Shocked to discover that his wife was using rags to protect herself during her period because sanitary pads were too costly, the school drop-out from rural India spent years trying to devise a machine to produce cheap sanitary pads for rural women – and eventually succeeded.
More importantly, in the May 2 article, I suggested that Mr Muruganantham could be invited to set up in Ghana. Under this project, the Government could contact him to help establish cheap pads manufacturing in our rural areas. That would expand the beneficiaries. As I stated in the article, “definitely, women here also need this saviour to come to their rescue.”
As to the argument that the money would be better spent on more important needs, is girls education, too, not a national priority? If anything should keep girls out of school in 2014 Ghana, it should certainly not be lack of sanitary pads.
And what happened to the belief that ‘if you have many farms, you cultivate or till all of them’ (in Akan: wo mfuo dooso a wodo ne nyinaa)? We should be concerned about the Government strengthening the whole economy not making economic scapegoats of the poor and vulnerable.
If other countries have similar support, it can’t be such an outrageous idea. The fact that UNESCO has researched sanitary pads and retention of girls in school surely tells us that it’s not a joking matter; and such assistance here is even long overdue.
Perhaps for some of those from privileged backgrounds, it is hard to accept that people can be too poor to afford even pads; maybe others believe that menstruation is a taboo subject, hence their condemnation of the idea.
Nevertheless, if the project is implemented, I hope that the criticisms and ridicule will not make the Government cancel the sanitary pads component, but instead use the issues raised to firm up the scholarship support to achieve its objectives.
For, who knows, one of those proposed beneficiaries could well turn out to be Ghana’s first woman President, or the genius who will lead Ghana out of its economic quagmire.