Menstrual health is not just about pads, water, or toilets, it is about rights, equality, and inclusion. Under SDG 4 and the Constitution of Kenya (2010), every girl has the right to education, dignity, and health. Yet, for many, menstruation remains a silent barrier to those rights.

The ICRH-K 2025 report found that 85.8% of girls experience privacy concerns when managing their periods at school, and only half of rural schools provide basic sanitation. But the real issue runs deeper than infrastructure, it is about the systemic neglect of menstrual health as a fundamental part of gender equality and social justice.

Menstruation continues to be treated as a private inconvenience rather than a public concern tied to equity, participation, and human dignity. 35.1% of respondents in the same study view menstruating girls as “unclean,” reinforcing a stigma that limits confidence, silences voices, and excludes girls from classrooms and communities.

When menstrual health is framed through a human rights lens, it demands more than hygiene solutions, it calls for accountability, policy reform, comprehensive education, and cultural change. It means ensuring that girls and all menstruating people can access information, resources, and support without discrimination or shame.

Recognizing menstrual health as a human rights and gender equality issue is essential to achieving Kenya’s commitments under the SDGs. It is about the right to learn, to participate, to live with dignity, and to be seen not as beneficiaries, but as equal citizens.

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