Street girls have devised means of surviving in the streets during their monthly period, and it is not a happy situation. The girls have been reduced to rags, torn mattresses, and’selling’ their bodies as a means of obtaining the necessary commodity to sustain them. According to The Star, some Nairobi street girls are selling themselves to older boys in exchange for coins to buy the commodity.
While most people give food to street children, they often overlook the fact that most girls require sanitary towels to meet their menstrual needs. Some of these street girls make do with tissue paper, clothes, and mattress fragments plucked from their beds.
According to Sonnie, a street girl, she had her period for the first time, but older girls came to her rescue and gave her a piece of mattress that helped her.
Doctors, on the other hand, have a different perspective on what street girls are currently doing. Doctor Wasike Wamalwa, a gynaecologist at Coptic Hospital, warned the girls that using tissues and dirty rags during their periods puts them at risk of infection.
According to the doctor, the filthy clothes endanger their health and future. The infection’s dangers could have immediate or long-term consequences. Long-term effects include cervix, pelvic cavity, and uterus infections, as well as pelvic inflammatory disease.
