India’s Supreme Court ruled on Friday that menstrual hygiene is a constitutional right, ordering all schools to provide free biodegradable sanitary pads, separate toilets and accessible facilities.
The court said the right for girls and women to manage their periods in hygienic conditions is a core part of the constitutional rights to life, privacy and dignity.
Access to menstrual hygiene products “is not a matter of charity or political discretion,” the court said, describing it as a constitutional entitlement flowing from the right to live with dignity and autonomy.
Enforcement and scope
The ruling requires all government and private schools across India’s states and union territories to provide biodegradable sanitary pads free of charge to all female students, along with separate toilets for female and male students and toilets accessible for people with disabilities.
It also warned private schools that failure to comply could mean their licenses being revoked and said the government could be liable if it falls short in implementing the judgment.
How the case reached the court
The judgment follows legal steps that began in November after an incident at Maharshi Dayanand University in Haryana, where three sanitation workers were forced to send photos of their sanitary pads to prove they were menstruating, prompting widespread anger over “period stigma.”
At that stage, a bench of Justices B.V. Nagarathna and R. Mahadevan expressed concern about such practices in educational institutions and workplaces, saying they reflected a deeply troubling mindset.
The petition filed by a lawyers’ association focused on multiple cases of degrading and intrusive checks imposed on women and girls, calling them a “blatant violation” of their constitutional rights. It also argued for the rights of women workers, especially in the unregulated private sector, to working conditions that respect biological differences and protect them from humiliating treatment.
If fully implemented, the ruling is expected to reshape public health and sanitation policies in India, where inadequate facilities and social stigma around menstruation directly affect the health, education, attendance, and dignity of millions of girls.
Scotland was the first country in the world to make period products available for free in November 2020, and India and Australia scrapped taxes on women’s hygiene products after years of campaigns led by women’s rights organizations and groups.
In a 2016 YouGov survey of 1,000 women in the UK, 52% said their ability to work was affected by period pain, but only 27% said they told their manager why, and about a third said they took at least one day of sick leave during their period.
In Egypt, three rights organizations launched the “A necessity, not a luxury” campaign on International Women’s Day, March 8, 2023, calling for sanitary pads to be covered by the health insurance system or provided at symbolic prices or for free.
Nessma El-Khatib, founder of the Sanad initiative for legal support for women, one of the organizations behind the campaign, told Al Manassa at the time that the effort came after the three groups documented women in the Arab region, including Egypt, increasingly resorting to unhealthy methods to manage their periods as economic conditions deteriorated.
Egyptians Without Borders also organized multiple campaigns to break taboos around discussing menstruation on social media, along with seminars for women and girls, and produced films on poverty and its impact on women and girls’ ability to buy sanitary pads, describing this as one cause of school dropout in poorer communities.
One of these efforts, the “Free from Violence” campaign, sought to confront violence faced by schoolgirls, aiming to create safe spaces to discuss difficult topics, including menstruation. A major part of the campaign focused on building girls’ self-respect and ending the shame stigma that can accompany menstruation.
