The dawn had barely broken when Rani was already in the fields, standing beside her father and brothers, hands moving through the crop. The harvest had to be collected before the heat set in, loaded and transported to the markets quickly, sold while the prices still held.
She finished her work and walked home. She had an exam that day. Her mother, quietly aware of the same, relieved her from helping prepare lunch. Rani sat down to study while her mother packed her tiffin. Then she was off, walking to school with her brothers, books under her arm.
She felt tired that day. A little uneasy, somewhere low in her abdomen. She had been noticing changes in her body for months now; skin breaking out, her height suddenly shooting up, her breasts filling out, changes she had observed quietly and mostly set aside. No one had sat with her and explained what was coming. So, she had simply decided they were ordinary. Something that happened to every woman.
She reached school, took her seat, and began her paper.
Then came a pain she had never felt before; sharp, originating deep in her insides. She told herself it was anxiety. She kept writing. Minutes later, she felt something warm and wet between her legs. A pressure on her bladder. She raised her hand and asked the male teacher on duty, if she could use the bathroom.
He said no. Administrative reasons.
She kept writing.
When the last question was answered, she got up and walked quickly. Then ran. Behind her, classmates began to murmur. Some pointed. She did not yet understand what they had noticed.
In the bathroom, she saw blood on her uniform, soaked through. She stood there alone, not knowing what this was, whether it was normal, whether she was ill, whether something inside her had broken. She wanted to call a female teacher. She could not bring herself to speak. She stayed locked in the stall for as long as she could, until the line outside made staying impossible.
She sent word to her elder brother, who, as shaken and uninformed as she was, took her home.
In the days that followed, Rani eventually stopped returning to school.
Rani’s story is not exceptional. It is the story of millions of adolescent girls across India, for whom menstruation arrives without warning, without education, without dignity, and without support. It is the story of girls who leave school and do not come back.
What researchers have pieced together, through large national surveys and independent studies, tells a story that is impossible to ignore.
The most widely used figure comes from Spot On, a landmark report by Indian public health organisation Dasra :
- 23 million girls drop out of school every year after their periods begin.
- That is 1 in every 5 adolescent girls pushed out by period poverty, the absence of basic facilities, and the weight of social stigma; not because of lack of ability or ambition.
Data from India’s National Family Health Survey and recent public health studies show:
- 1 in 4 girls between the ages of 15 and 19 misses school entirely every time she has her period.
- Most menstruating girls lose 2 to 5 school days every month. Over a full academic year, that adds up to weeks of missed lessons, enough to fall irreversibly behind.
A study published in the National Journal of Community Medicine asked girls directly why they stayed home. Their answers were telling:
- 37% stayed home because of severe cramps, and because there was nowhere at school to rest or manage the pain.
- 22% were kept home by family members, usually mothers, who had been raised to treat menstruation as a reason for isolation.
- 19% were too afraid of staining their clothes in front of classmates to risk coming in.
- 13% simply had no private place at school to change their sanitary products.
The data also reveals that girls are far more likely to stay enrolled when the school has a clean, private toilet for girls and they know what menstruation is before it happens to them.
Table 1: Key Menstrual Health and Infrastructure Indicators for Adolescent Girls in India
| What we measured | What we found | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Access to sanitary products | 77% of young women nationally use hygienic protection, but in states like Bihar, that number drops to as low as 32%. In Kerala, it is above 95%. | NFHS-5 |
| Private toilets for girls in rural schools | Only 42–49% of rural schools have a separate, functional, private toilet for girls — with a door, water, and a place to dispose of pads. | UNICEF / NFHS-5 |
| Girls who knew what a period was before it happened | Between 50% and 71% of girls had no idea what menstruation was until it happened to them — just like Rani. | UNESCO / Dasra |
The Uncomfortable Truth
More girls now have access to sanitary pads than ever before, and that matters. But a pad, on its own, is not enough to keep a girl in school.
It matters how she uses it, when she changes it, and whether anyone ever taught her how. That knowledge, basic, practical, and entirely absent from most girls’ lives, is as much a part of menstrual health as the product itself. Handing a girl a pad without education, privacy, or support is like giving someone the tools without ever explaining what they are for.
If she has nowhere private to change, she will stay home. If she has been taught that her period makes her impure or untouchable, she will stay home. If she was never told that bleeding was coming, the fear alone can pull her out of the classroom for days, sometimes permanently.
What Is Being Done, And Whether It Is Enough
That approach is now changing. In January 2026, the Supreme Court of India issued a landmark ruling recognising dignified menstrual health as a fundamental right, an inseparable part of both the Right to Life and the Right to Education. Menstrual health is now no longer a welfare gesture, it is a legal obligation.
The Programmes at a Glance
Table 2: Inter-Ministerial Menstrual Equity Frameworks and Implementation Targets (2026)
| Programme | Who It Targets | What It Does |
|---|---|---|
| Mission Shakti (Beti Bachao Beti Padhao) (Ministry of Women and Child Development) | Girls in secondary and higher secondary schools | Redirects funds from advertising into school infrastructure; menstrual hygiene corners, female-only toilets, and sanitary napkin vending machines. Local women’s collectives (Nari Adalats) audit facilities to ensure they remain functional. |
| Saksham Anganwadi & Poshan 2.0 (Scheme for Adolescent Girls) (Ministry of Women and Child Development) | Out-of-school girls aged 11–14 | Uses village-level Anganwadi workers to distribute subsidised pads and counsel girls and families through the fear surrounding a first period, aiming to catch girls before absence becomes dropout. |
| Swasth Nari, Sashakt Parivar Abhiyan (Ministry of Women and Child Development + Ministry of Health) | Adolescent girls in rural districts | Runs large-scale health camps pairing reproductive health check-ups with menstrual hygiene support and mental health counselling for girls facing social isolation during their periods. |
| Aspirational Districts Programme (NITI Aayog) | Low-performing states | Benchmarks and ranks states on menstrual equity. Ties National Health Mission funding to how effectively states close infrastructure gaps, making inaction financially costly. |
| BRSR / ESG Menstrual Equity Mandate (NITI Aayog) | India’s top 1,000 listed companies | Embeds menstrual equity into mandatory corporate sustainability reporting. Incentivises companies to adopt school sanitation facilities long-term, monitored via sensor-based dashboards, replacing one-time donations with sustained accountability. |
| Samagra Shiksha – 3-S Period Protocol (Ministry of Education + Ministry of Women and Child Development + NITI Aayog) | All state-run schools | Enforces three non-negotiable standards: Supply (free pads via vending machines), Sanitation (private, lockable girls’ toilets with running water), and Shredding (electric incinerators for discreet disposal). |
While these inter-ministerial frameworks represent a historic shift toward national accountability, good intentions on paper only matter if they actively protect a girl sitting in a classroom. Building the infrastructure is merely step one; the true test lies in execution, cultural acceptance, and local maintenance. To bridge the gap between systemic legislation and the daily reality of adolescent students, India’s strategy must expand to address certain non-negotiable areas:
1. MANDATE MENSTRUAL TRACKING IN SCHOOL REGISTERS
When a girl drops out of school because of her period, no register records that as the reason. It gets filed under “family reasons” or simply left blank. We cannot fix a problem we are not measuring. Schools should be required to record why girls leave, and track whether they are missing class every month because of their periods.
2. MOVE FROM BUILDING INFRASTRUCTURES TO MAINTAINING IT
Toilets get constructed and locked. Vending machines get installed and run empty. Incinerators break down and nobody fixes them. Building infrastructure is only half the job. The other half is maintaining it, restocking it, and making sure someone is held responsible when it stops working.
3. DIVERSIFY PRODUCT STANDARDS AND PRIORITIZE SUSTAINABILITY
- The pads currently distributed under government schemes come in one size, but a sanitary pad is not one-size-fits-all.
- Girls of different ages, body shapes, and sizes have different needs, and an ill-fitting pad is as good as no pad at all. Product standards need to reflect this reality.
- It is also recommended shifting away from oxo-biodegradable plastics, which break down into microplastics — toward truly compostable alternatives made from plant-based materials like bamboo fibre or banana stem waste, which dissolve fully without leaving toxic residues in soil.
- Reusable options like menstrual cups and cloth pads should be made available too. They are safer over time, cheaper, and better for the environment. The widespread belief that menstrual cups compromise virginity is a medical misconception, one that is costing women their health and costing the country an enormous, invisible disease burden. It needs to be openly and consistently challenged.
4. EXPAND POLICY FRAMEWORKS
The current schemes stop at government schools and girls under 14. Private school students, older teenage girls who have already dropped out, and transgender students who menstruate are all being left behind. The framework needs to expand to reach every girl, not just the easiest ones to reach.
5. ESTABLISH A DIRECT, COMMUNITY-FACING GRIEVANCE HELPLINE
If a toilet is broken, a vending machine is empty, or a school is not following its own rules, there is currently no simple way to report it. A basic helpline , reachable by SMS or missed call, available in local languages, would give every parent, student, and community member a voice.
6. INTEGRATE BOYS AND MEN INTO MENSTRUAL EDUCATION
- It makes no sense to educate girls about menstruation while leaving the other half of society entirely uninformed, the brothers, fathers, male classmates, and male teachers who shape the environment a girl menstruates in.
- Dedicated awareness programmes for boys, delivered through booklets, short films, and school drives led by trained volunteers, would go a long way toward dismantling the embarrassment and stigma that girls currently carry alone.
- When boys understand what menstruation is, they stop being a source of shame, and can become a source of support.
7. REACHING THE WOMEN PERPETUATING THE STIGMA
In many households, it is older women; mothers, mothers-in-law, grandmothers, who enforce the restrictions that keep menstruating girls isolated and ashamed. No government scheme can reach a girl if the woman running her household treats her period as something impure. Awareness drives must include older women, meeting them with respect and without judgment, while clearly separating cultural traditions that deserve respect from practices rooted in the subordination of women.
8. CHANGING HOW PEOPLE THINK, NOT HOW THEY BUILD
A new toilet does not help if a teacher still turns a girl away from the bathroom. A vending machine does not help if a girl has been told her period makes her untouchable. Teachers need to be trained. Menstrual health needs to be taught in school, much before a girl gets her first period, not after. And communities need sustained, long-term support to unlearn generations of shame. A one-day health camp is a beginning. It is not a solution.
Rani did not drop out of school because she was incompetent. She stayed home because every system designed to support her, her school, her curriculum, and the teacher on duty, failed to show up.
The next time a young girl raises her hand in a crowded classroom, feeling that first wave of anxiety and pain, the system cannot afford to turn her away. True menstrual equity won’t be measured simply by the number of toilets built or pads distributed. It will be measured by whether that girl can finish her exam, walk out with her dignity intact, and confidently return to her desk the very next morning.
Sources:
- Supreme Court of India. (2026). Dr. Jaya Thakur v. Union of India & Ors. (Writ Petition (Civil) No. 1000/2022). Orders regarding the formulation of a Uniform National Menstrual Hygiene Policy.
- Dasra. (2014). Spot On! Improving menstrual management in India. Mumbai: Dasra.
- Rawat, A., & Imurana, H. (2024). A study to explore the psychosocial impact of menstruation on visually impaired school girls with special reference to Lucknow City. International Journal of Emerging Knowledge Studies, 3(11), 903–915. https://doi.org/10.70333/ijeks-03-11-005
- International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), & ICF. (2021). National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5), 2019–21: India: Volume I. Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India.
- Thakre, S. B., Thakre, S. S., Reddy, M., Rathi, N., Pathak, K., & Ughade, S. (2011). Menstrual hygiene: Knowledge and practices among adolescent school girls of a rural area. National Journal of Community Medicine, 2(1), 139–143.
- UNESCO. (2014). Puberty education & menstrual hygiene management (Good Policy and Practice in Health Education, Booklet 9). Paris: UNESCO.
- UNICEF. (2020). Guidance on menstrual health and hygiene. New York: UNICEF.
- WaterAid India & Menstrual Hygiene Alliance of India (MHAI). (2019). Environmental sustainability and menstrual hygiene management in India: A study on the choices, preferences, and path ahead. New Delhi: WaterAid.
- European Chemicals Agency (ECHA). (2019). Investigation report on oxo-degradable plastics. Helsinki, Finland.
- van Eijk, A. M., Zulaika, G., Lenchner, M., Mason, L., Sivakami, M., Nyothach, E., … & Phillips-Howard, P. A. (2019). Menstrual cup use, leakage, acceptability, safety, and environmental impact: A systematic review and meta-analysis. The Lancet Public Health, 4(8), e376–e393. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2468-2667(19)30111-2
- Guidance on men and boys’ involvement in menstrual health and hygiene. Kathmandu: UNICEF Regional Office for South Asia.
- Human Rights Watch, & WASH United. (2017). Understanding menstrual hygiene management and human rights. New York: HRW.
© Wanee Writes, 2026. All rights reserved.
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