"Menstruation matters: Poor economy puts products out of reach", 27 August 2024

The third week of every month fills garment worker Ma Lwin with dread. Her period usually falls at that time, and for several months she hasn’t had enough feminine hygiene products at hand.

Between rampant inflation and her low salary at a factory in Yangon’s East Hlaing Tharyar Township, Ma Lwin has been forced to cut back from three to four pads per day to just one...

Before the economic crisis caused by the 2021 military coup, working class women like Ma Lwin could buy a cheap pack of eight or 10 pads for just K400, but now the price has risen to between K1,500 and K2,000 per pack.

Limiting herself to just one pad during working hours, which with overtime can last from 7am to 6pm, Ma Lwin has found an alternative – but one that puts her health at risk. Instead of sterilised menstrual pads, she often sews makeshift pads with pieces of cloth discarded at her factory...

Health professionals advise against using these self-made pads without sterilising them because of the danger of infections...

Ma Lwin said she knows about the health risks, but she has no choice. ..her friend Ma Cho Mar, also a garment worker...had to go to a private clinic after suffering an acutely painful urination...

Daw Khin Thandar Moe, a member of the Federation of General Workers Myanmar’s central committee, told Frontier that many female workers in the garment sector are facing the same problem...

Female garment workers, who sometimes work while standing, often feel serious abdominal pain during their periods. But according to Khin Thandar Moe, supervisors don’t give leave days to workers who request it during menstruation.

“Supervisors verbally abuse workers saying things like, ‘It’s not only you who suffers menstrual pain. Don’t make a big deal out of this’. They yell at workers and tell them to quit the job right away when they ask for leave. In reality, leave is their right under the law,” Khin Thandar Moe said.

A female supervisor at a shoe factory in Yangon’s West Hlaing Tharyar Township told Frontier that supervisors can’t give leave for menstrual pain because of the high ratio of female workers in the garment sector...

“Many will follow if we give leave to one. If we don’t meet the targets, the factory manager puts pressure on us, the supervisors, and salaries are reduced...” she said.

Labour activists have demanded that factories supply pain relievers and menstruation pads to their workers, but their requests have fallen on deaf ears...

A woman working at the Tianjin Fashion Milestone factory in West Hlaing Tharyar told Frontier that her factory has a clinic and a nurse, but no medicines. “It’s just for show, the clinic doesn’t treat us well or give us any medicines,” she said.

The factory has has around 1,400 mostly female workers and produces for...Sinsay, she said...

She has also reduced her use of menstrual pads in the past four months. She complained that she feels insecure and undignified during her period.

“We have no time and no extra pad to change because we are working hard to meet our targets. When I have my period, I only wear a htamein [a Myanmar traditional skirt for women]. If menstrual blood stains the htamein, I turn it over and hide the stains. I also bring a length of cloth and wrap it around my waist on the way back from the factory,” she said...