Menstrual Hygiene awareness in Gulbarga

Today (Sep 7, 2011) I spent time trying to assess the level of awareness on Menstrual Hygiene practises that adolescent girls and women in Gulbarga town have. This is one topic where you can’t distribute asurvey form and get data. You need to interact with them and make them come out of their shell and only then will they start talking. So I did 3 awareness sessions today – one with college going girls, another with high school girlsand finally, with married women from a slum. Some things that happened:

·        The college going girls were so amazingly enthusiastic and full of questions. Though I was supposed to take the sessionfor a class of 150 students, students kept peeping in and joining the session. By the end, at least 200 girls were sitting, standing, kneeling and absorbing all that I was telling them. And participating. Their doubts and questions were at the same level as those of girls in Bangalore's govt. colleges.

·        High school girls were also inquisitive and bold enough to ask questions and seek information though it was a much smaller group of about 20 students and a couple of teachers. Here too, the students can be compared to have knowledge levels same as Bangalore's govt. schools.

·        The women from slums in comparison were a big shock for me. Out of the 30 odd women present, at least 25 were married and NONE of them knew even basics. One lady, around 40 years of age asked “Is thereany relation between menstruation and child birth?!” And so I asked them “How do you think children are born?” Nobody knew. I asked a grandmother there who had 5 kids “Ajji, how do you think children are born?” She said “Gottilla amma" (I do not know). Then they bring a lady who is aged 30 years old and married forlast 10 years and ask me to advise her on what to do since she has no children.I asked her “Do you know how children are born?” And she said, Gottilla.

Those who do have children, have around 5-6 of them, oftenin an attempt to produce at least one boy baby. Ask them why and they say “Because women get married and go away, so at least boys would stay with us and lookafter us when we grow old. Plus, dowry is unaffordable”. While the young students I interacted with knew that having a boy or girl child is something that a male is responsible for (given that only men have the Y chromosome required to have a male child), the older married women were of the thinking that it is the women who has to be held responsible if the child born is not a boy. Clearly, we can see what education does because the married women were mostly uneducated.

I also interacted with someone from a women’s help NGO and they told me that child marriage is very common in these areas for many reasons, such as:

·        If the girl is married as a child, it is oftento a family member (uncle, cousin, etc) and therefore no dowry to be paid

·        If the girl is educated, a higher dowry has tobe paid to “get rid of her”

·        Once the girl attains puberty, it is dangerous to leave her unattended as she may talk to boys and get pregnant

·        Women are born only so that they can be married and sent away, and the sooner we do that (in the form of child marriage), thefaster our responsibility ends

For majority of the girls and women I interacted with today,I was the first person (including their mothers & teachers) who told them about what happens to their body during menstruation and what they need to doto be healthy & hygienic. Such a basic and natural process; yet nobody talks about it.

Chincholi

In Gulbarga now. Visited one of the taluks here called Chincholi which was recently in the news for selling girl children (much of which I am now told is untrue). Chincholi is a 3 hours tiring drive from Gulbarga on roads that are made bad with the rains turning everything to slush. Just when I thought the roads to Afzalpur are bad, Chincholi makes you feel like Afzalpur is really forward.

Chincholi

This place is quite cut off from the rest of Gulbarga and has a relatively large population of the Lambani group of tribals. Although an ex chief minister is from Chincholi, it has been around 2 years since any senior government official visited this place (except when the recent news flashed in the papers about selling of girl child). Surrounded by greenery,  mud roads and Lambani population, somehow, people seemed to have forgotten that Chincholi exists.

The situation at the Taluk Hospital

We first visited the Taluk hospital in Chincholi and one patient asked me where the doctor is. I told her that I am also wondering the same. We were taken to the doctors quarters which is quite a spacious & empty building. Slouching in one corner was a tired looking man - the doctor. He is one among the only two doctors in this hospital for the last 2 years. Although an Anaesthetist, he ends up attending to every type of case that comes there. A very well spoken doctor, but extremely overworked and exhausted. The only time I saw some light in his face was when we told him what we've done in Afzalpur and asked if such help is needed here. His reply was that any (even Ayurvedic) doctor will greatly reduce the burden here. He works day and night and sees 250 OPD cases a day. Even when he comes to his quarters to rest a bit, there are immediately patients queuing up outside his quarters.

Since travelling to this place back and forth from Gulbarga might not be an option given the distance and bad roads, I asked him if any accommodation could be arranged for me if I decided to work there. He said "consider this your house. I will move out if you wish to stay here". I can't help but admire this doctor's will to stay back in this isolated place when he definitely can get many other options for a job. Hats off to him.

Women's health and hygiene

I don't know where to begin when it comes to this. I interacted with some Lambani women, an anganwadi lady and someone from an NGO working in these areas and the answers have been sad. Women here keep reproducing like a machine unless they have a boy child. If not, their husband will leave them and marry elsewhere. Girls are a burden because you have to pay Rs. 3 lac as dowry to get them married. Needless to say that such attitude towards girls means that they do not care much for their education or well-being and without the constant push of the NGO there, they would not bother sending them to school either. A senior person said to me "Obviously they want a boy. If I had 4 girls, then even I would want a boy...who wouldn't? And what use are girls anyway?" Yes, girls are probably sold here and it is likely that they are killed too (since the concept of abortion in the womb hasn't reached them yet), but it is apparently no big deal since it is only around 4% of the population which does that. That is what I was told.

Then I heard how someone tried to build a toilet for a Lambani family, and they pulled it apart completely, broke the water pipes, even the bucket was destroyed. For them, it is unthinkable to do something so dirty near your house (having a toilet inside your house is unmentionable). I'll skip mentioning their practises related to menstrual hygiene.

NGOs, government and other groups have conducted awareness sessions and after the recent news in the papers, some lawyers were also called to explain that killing the girl child is illegal. The NGOs even had some women come & talk who have done well in life despite coming from a similar background, hoping that these women can be role models for the Lambanis. The tribals are aware of all the facts and the law and will listen to all that is told to them. Yet it does nothing to change their attitude. And here too, men spend more than half the income(mostly earned by women working as coolies) on alcohol, and if they run out of money, they borrow money just to buy alcohol. I sensed that even the NGOs are slowly giving up.

No amount of money spent by the government or others will necessarily help in this case - either to bring doctors to the Taluk hospital or to change the attitudes of the Lambani tribes.

What do you think should be done in such a scenario?