Unhygienic menstrual habits exposes women to the risk of cervical cancer, Shantha Sheela Nair, formerly vice-president, Tamil Nadu Planning Commission, told a gathering of students at a meeting organised here on Sunday to create awareness on sanitation and general hygiene.
Use of sanitary pads would prevent cervical cancer, the former civil servant said, recalling the campaign for menstrual hygiene she had carried out in rural parts of the district when she had served as the Collector.
Speaking at a programme organised by the Menstrual Hygiene Management Consortium (MHMC) in association with Shrimati Indira Gandhi College, to promote basic hygiene and practice menstrual hygiene management in day-to-day lives, the former IAS official urged the students to take the message of hygiene to the public.
“Anaemia in women is a huge problem. Because we are consuming imbalanced diets, the condition prevails,” she said and advised the girls to create awareness of the drop in sex ratio in Tamil Nadu.
“Doctors continue to reveal the sex of unborn babies, encouraging infant deaths and female foeticide. Even though it is punishable by law, scientific knowledge is being misused. Raise your voices, stop your family members and friends from doing such a thing,” she said.
Earlier, Ms. Nair released a booklet on general hygiene, slogan stickers on menstrual hygiene and launched the MHMC website.
Sibi Aditya Senthil Kumar, Sub-Collector, Srirangam, observed that men too need to be a part of the conversation on menstrual hygiene. “Tackling anything is a three-step procedure- acknowledging, discussing the problem and finding solutions. Now is the time to discuss,” he said.
K. Meena, vice-president, MHMC; M. Subburaman, Director, Society for Community Organisation and People’s Education; and Kannagi Chandrasekaran, Founder president, Welfare Organisation for Multi-purpose Mass Awareness Network, also spoke.
