Govt urged to provide sanitary towels to high school girls

Residents of Gem in Siaya County have called on the national government, through the Ministry of Education, to upscale its programme on free sanitary pads for school girls to reach day secondary schools.

Speaking during a girl child empowerment day at the school, Nyalunya Mixed Day Secondary School Principal, William K’okaro, said that the programme would help in increasing the girls’ contact hours in school and consequently improve their academic performance.

K’okaro lauded the government for introducing the free sanitary pads for primary schools, stressing that the initiative should be extended to secondary schools because that is the level with the highest concentration of adolescent girls.

The principal also revealed that the school management decided to allocate part of the subsidized secondary education funds that they receive from the government to the sanitary pad project with a view of ensuring they keep all their female students in school.

“It has been a usual norm in Kenya for girls to miss school when they are menstruating due to lack of sanitary pads, and this has prompted us to start an initiative to provide sanitary towels to our female students every term,” he noted.