POKHARA, Dec 4: The Pokhara Metropolitan City (PMC) is to make sure all the educational intuitions in the metropolis would have sanitary pads for the girl students, keeping in mind the sensitive issue related to the reproductive health of the girls. 

In the context of the 16-days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence ongoing across the globe, Spokesperson at the PMC and Ward Chairperson of PMC-5 Dhan Bahadur Nepali pledged to make efforts for ensuring girls and women exercise their reproductive health rights and they could improve their education and menstrual hygienic through the distribution of free menstrual pads. 

Furthermore, he viewed that by providing free sanitary pad in the schools and colleges, the girl students would be encouraged to attend their classes regularly and concentrate in their studies which would eventually contribute towards their increased performance, thereby reducing the gender gap between boys and girls in enrolment and retention in school. 

It was declared that all the academic institutions in ward no 5 in PMC were declared to have sanitary pad facilities for the girl students. Efforts for this were coordinated between the Education Committee project and Women's Initiative for Social Awareness in assistance of the Ward Office-5. 

According to him, around Rs 30,000 would be allocated by his Ward office to ensure all the bathrooms and toilets in the educational institutions in Ward No 5 have modern sanitary pad kits so as to create an environment where girls can have easy access to modern sanitary napkins and proper Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM). 

According to a study done by Mitini, an NGO working in the MHM, in 2015 it was found that more than 20 percent of girls miss their schools during their period in Kathmandu, owing to embarrassment, worries and in lack of sanitary facilities in their schools among others. However, this data for Pokhara is not available. 
 

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