In continuation of my previous article on Menstruation, I have depicted the true picture about the problems of the women and how the society remains ignorant across the globe without proper facilities. As an economist, I find immense growth opportunities for resolving this women problem. Government and capitalisms both need to resolve this issue through a judicious mix of exploration of opportunities. It’s well clear that superstition and no proper facility for the women have been created for this worldwide most common problem. This menstruation can be an economic growth contributor provided the vision is changed by the society. The biggest economic reason is that irrespective of any economic condition in any country this menstruation will never end, hence government and capitalist minds need to come together to explore opportunities. The biggest barrier to adoption of quality sanitary napkins in any country turned out to be "affordability and accessibility".Low cost of production and application of cost management strategies could be a game changer for promoting entrepreneurship for production of sanitary napkins. We will discuss on this topic later on. The profession of cost management can be of great help for women.
The health and life loss is a big issue which remains unheard and silent until mass people are affected. Health-related awareness has remained restricted only to few specific days. This is a major problem. Building awareness is not sufficient enough as the availability of the same product at a cheap price is the ultimate end point for the solution of the problem.
Every economy suffers huge loss due to the unhygienic treatment of menstruation. Cervical cancer a disease born from unhygienic ways of menstruation management kills around 72,000 women in India every year, more than 26% of the 275,000 deaths worldwide. Cervical cancer is common among women worldwide. It kills more women in India than anywhere else in the world. India women die from cervical cancer than women of any other country, according to a new report that warns deaths from this preventable disease will rise unless attitudes to women change. Most of the adolescent girls in villages use rags and old clothes during menstruation. India has one-fourth of the world's burden of cancer of the cervix with nearly 132,000 women being diagnosed every year. Of the 355 million menstruating women in India, only 12 percent use sanitary napkins. Its next to negligible.
All economies should make sanitary napkins free of any tax. This is will reduce the prices and should make the product available to anyone across any country. Health and hygiene could only be maintained when the product becomes cheap and could be made easily affordable. This industry should always be classified under Small and Medium Enterprise as this will drive growth and employment for the economies. Making the product available at the mass level and also with a never-ending demand is one of the biggest opportunities for the economic growth. A mass number of entrepreneurship could come up to facilitate this gap between demand and supply and also the high prices.
Entrepreneurship promotions should be promoted so that tax sops and other incentives make the product cheap and available for the mass of people. This law should be universal and should be promoted on a universal basis since the Menstruation is not restricted to any particular economy. The economic benefits would be a creation of employment and ancillary product demand. The biggest benefit is that despite any economic condition either recession or vice versa this problem and demand for the product will never end. Today we all know that as prices are high for sanitary napkins in many countries women prefer to use unhygienic methods to save money. The government can easily give sops to promote this industry where women will get hygienic products and living style.
The pain of ignorance is that as women use traditional and unhealthy ways of managing this problem the risk related to various diseases increase over the time.
Preparation and availability of women-specific toilets, where these sanitary napkins are provided at free or at a cheap price, through automated vending machines. Now we often find that women related toilets are less in number or there is a considerable distance between two destinations of toilets. Hence the number of toilets is required. In the rural part of many countries, they don’t have proper facilities like women toilet. For these places having an advanced level of the women-centric toilet is a distant dream. My point is that creating women-centric toilets where minimum maintenance and a higher level of facilities are provided. Availability of Napkins will make women freer from carrying the bundle in their bags. While traveling on highways and long distance we need these toilets since only nature knows its own call.
These toilets can be a business opportunity as many tax benefits as well as many new generation entrepreneurs will come up to develop these toilets. Hygiene education and removing the traditional thought process for menstruation should be removed and the best way to depart this education is massive training in schools and through other health activities. But mere education will not solve the problem. Making the availability of the same is more important. Every school should have free sanitary napkins to take the things way forward.
Coming to India it has to take a pledge like remove polio type of mission where to remove the traditional use of sanitary napkins should be the oath. Unless the ratio Of the 355 million menstruating women in India, only 12 percent use sanitary napkins are being converted into 100% use of sanitary napkins no country should ignore this huge opportunity. Every country has to take a pledge of saving the women as their death is a loss to the economic growth and also their health-related issues is a loss for the insurance companies. Pledge to make sanitary napkins use more should be the mission till 2025.