The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Justine Lumumba Kasule, the Minister in charge of General Duties in the Office of the Prime Minister – OPM has apologized to the nation over the government’s failure to deliver free sanitary pads to girls across the country.
Free sanitary pads were a presidential pledge contained in the 2016 – 2021 Manifesto of the ruling National Resistance Movement – NRM government to address school drop, promote dignity, menstrual hygiene, and the well-being of adolescent girls in primary and secondary schools.
The pledge was expected to be implemented in the Financial Year 2017/2018 but to date, the initiative has remained just on paper, eight years since President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni made the pronouncement.
Lumumba, says the guilt of failure is an indictment of all the women who constitute 43 percent of Museveni’s cabinet, arguing that the government must refocus on its intervention of providing free condoms in public toilets to curtail the spread of HIV/AIDS and prioritize the plight of the vulnerable girl child.
The former Secretary General of NRM was speaking on Sunday at the Sheraton Hotel in Kampala during a closing ceremony of the third exhibition dubbed “Because of Her”, an annual week-long event held every March since 2020 to commemorate International Women’s Day to celebrate women achievers and champion gender equality in Uganda.
Patience Poni Ayikoru, an Advocate for Governance and Gender Justice and founder of ‘Femme Talk West Nile’, a volunteer-based organization in Koboko District says they have established a pads booth in the region to offer free napkins as they await government.
Keisha Patience, who co-founded Because of Her with her twin sister Portia Owera says their mandate has expanded to create pad booths in the Kigezi region and also train women and girls with requisite skills to enable them to make their own reusable and non-reusable napkins to period poverty among girls.
Speaking at the same event, Catherine Kyokunda Donovan, the Commissioner of Legal Services and Border Affairs at Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) says the need for sanitary pads is an unquestionable that the government must address expeditiously to empower and inspire girls and women.
Nevertheless, the activists challenged the government which boasts of women empowerment initiatives citing the 43 percent of women in Cabinet, 46 percent in local government positions, and 33 percent in Parliament to walk the talk and invest in girls to build a sustainable and prosperous society.
In April 2020, First Lady Janet Kataha Museveni, the Minister of Education and Sports revealed that the government was planning to set up a factory to manufacture sanitary pads that would be distributed at no cost to all girls across the country but the plan is yet to materialize.
In Uganda, the rate of school dropout of girls compared to their boy counterparts remains higher owing to a lack of supportive infrastructure including clean lavatories, changing rooms, water for washing, and hygienic sanitary ware for effective menstrual cycle management.
Studies have shown one in ten menstruating girls skips four to ten days in a month, or completely drop out. On average a menstruating girl loses 13 learning days equivalent to two weeks of learning, and 104 hours of school every school term. It is also estimated that around 23 percent of adolescent girls aged 12 to 18 drop out of school after beginning menstruation.
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