Water and Gender in Africa

Having extended the debates surrounding water and sanitation in Africa in this week's seminar and lecture, I wanted to look more at a specific initiative that is being used to combat the problem of period poverty: reusable sanitary products.  Around the world, there has been a boom in the sale of reusable sanitary products; an affordable and sustainable alternative to existing disposable products which produce huge amounts of plastic waste and are less economical. I believe that not only are reusable sanitary products a more eco-friendly alternative to existing products, but they could play a crucial role in the global fight against period poverty.  Due to the longer-lasting nature of reusable sanitary products, they are a much more cost-effective and efficient means of Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM) to those who may not be able to afford or have consistent access to disposable sanitary products. The effects of period poverty in Africa are felt most strongly in rural areas...

This week, the lecture focus was sanitation. As a result, I wanted to look into the term "period poverty". I have heard this term countless times and yet I have never looked into how this issue plays out in real time.  One of the definitions for 'period poverty' or menstrual health management (MHM) was not having access to soap and water to be able to wash during menstruation, as well as not having access to facilities where menstrual products can be disposed of correctly ( Tull, 2019 ). Period poverty is therefore clearly related to the problem of access to clean water.  Research by UNICEF has highlighted a shocking statistic that '65% of females in Kibera... had traded sex for sanitary pads due to the prevalence of period poverty and the shame, stigma and public health misinformation which surrounds menstruation' ( ibid ). Though it is important to acknowledge that this statistic is only indicative of the wider issue (and UNICEF Kenya stated that this inform...

Having looked in my past two blog posts at broad issues relating to gender and water across Africa, this week I wanted to focus in on a specific case study. Oladosu Adenike, an author and self-proclaimed " ecofeminist " who has featured in my previous two blog posts, champions the experiences of those from her region of Lake Chad, and so this is where I would like to focus this blog post.  The region of Lake Chad covers the countries of Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon and Chad and has been an area particularly affected by the activity of insurgence group Boko Haram, a feature which makes it a poignant case study in relation to gender. Boko Haram activity has resulted in around '192,000 refugees across the Lake Chad Basin and 1.6 million Internally Displaced Persons in Nigeria and tens of thousands in Cameroon' ( Oyewole, 2015 ).  The lake itself, situated between the Sahel and Sahara deserts is 'prone to wide variation in area' due to fluctuation in desert rainfall, ...