Int’l Youth Day: Free sanitary products in schools worry Group

Nigerian government has been charged to boost school enrolment for girls by providing free sanitary products.

CEE-Hope Nigeria, a non-governmental not-for-profit organization, made the call on the occasion of the International Youth Day in Lagos.

Founder and Executive Director of CEE-Hope, Betty Abah, said millions of girls miss school every day due to their inability to afford sanitary wares during their menstrual cycle.

“We urge the Nigerian government to emulate its Kenyan and other African counterparts who have enacted policies enabling the distribution of free sanitary products to their countries’ school girls,” Ms. Abah said in a statement.

According to her, providing free sanitary products for school girls “will encourage girl education and end period poverty. It is well known that the lack of access to sanitary products causes millions of girls especially from impoverished communities in developing countries to miss school every day.

This is in addition to constraining many to engage in contractual sex to be able to purchase the products thereby increasing their vulnerability to Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs).”

She further highlighted that not doing so “impact their health negatively and impedes their overall progress in addition to widening the existing gender equality gap.

“Furthermore, in light of Nigeria’s huge out-of-school population of about 12 million children most of whom are girls (currently the highest in the world), it makes it more imperative for our government to do the needful now.”

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