Girls in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province are going to get free sanitary pads when they get their periods in an effort to reduce school dropout rates.
Research has found that millions of South African girls, especially from poor backgrounds, miss school because they are not able to afford pads.
The KwaZulu-Natal Education Department say it will provide the pads to pupils in close to 3,000 schools in the province.
They will be distributed either by the school principal or an official at the school every month and the girls will be required to sign for them.
The department’s Kwazi Mthethwa said:
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We don’t want aunties and other women to use these sanitary pads because they are there to help our female learners and to ensure that they don’t have to miss classes because they cannot afford these pads.”
It is estimated that some girls aged between 13 and 19 in South Africa miss one week of school every month while menstruating because of not being able to afford sanitary pads.
