McDonald: Addressing period poverty expands healthcare access | Opinion

When visiting developing nations as CEO of Procter & Gamble, colleagues and I often discovered that the people we met lacked the opportunity to reach their full potential. In many cases, that would be due to a lack of adequate education and a lack of access to quality health care.

In some countries, we discovered that many people didn’t understand menstruation and puberty in girls. As it turns out, they were hardly alone. A report by P&G and WASH United found that period shame, taboos and misinformation prevail worldwide.

My wife and I witnessed this once when visiting a Hindu temple in Bali. A sign read, “If you’re a woman that’s menstruating, you’re not allowed in the temple.”

Historically, beliefs existed in the Christian Bible or Jewish Torah about a lack of cleanliness during menstruation. Many of those customs probably made sense at the time they were created. But they don’t make sense today, and they , and misinformation prevail worldwide.

Source: https://www.detroitnews.com/story/opinion/2023/03/02/mcdonald-addressing-period-poverty-expands-healthcare-access/69961948007/