Menstruating in Unconventional Spaces: Bleeding on the Front Line
As of 2024, fifty countries ranked in the index categories for extreme, high, or turbulent levels of conflict. Palestine, specifically Gaza, held the highest position being deemed the ‘most deadly country’, while Ukraine stood as the most violent country by event count, averaging at over 791 political violence events per week.
Menstruating within conflicts – in the midst of violence, displacement, and often famine is an overlooked reality for millions. The humanitarian crises that come of conflict do not merely exacerbate existing challenges for people who menstruate; they strip away the dignity, safety, and infastructure required to manage periods. Menstruation becomes a fear-ridden and, at times, life-threatening experience.
The Human Cost of Menstrual Product Shortages
In times of conflict, existing healthcare and resources are put under immemse stress, and among the first necessities to become scarce are safe, discrete menstrual products. In Gaza, more than 540,000 women and girls of reproductive age lack access to essential items needed to support their hygiene, health, and dignity, forcing many to rely on makeshift materials to replace menstrual products. The demand for these products cannot be overstated, with Aisha, a displaced girl in Gaza stating that “sometimes I need pads and soap more than I need food.”
This need is massive, yet response has fallen short. While UN Women estimated that 10 million disposable pads are needed monthly in Gaza, only 6,182,000 have been distributed by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) over a ten-month period.
Faced with crippling scarcity, many resort to makeshift solutions. Displaced individuals use clothes, plastic, and other natural materials to mimic pads. A father displayed from Jabalia in northern Gaza shared, “I tore my only shirt into pieces so my daughters could use them instead of pads.” While necessary for survival, these homemade methods are often painful, undignified, and can lead to dangerous infections as well as blood stains, causing shame that isolates women and girls from their already fragmented communities.
In Ukraine, a similar crisis of access persists. Ninety percent of the displaced population are women, many of whom face menstruation without access to period products as Russia’s full-scale invasion drives prices up and limits availability. One woman revealed: “There are pads and tampons for sale, but because of the troubles with finances, I need to choose whether I buy food or pads. After the start of the full-scale invasion, I use improvised means.”
Maria, a Ukrainian woman from Kyiv, remembered her first few weeks of the war, sharing how stresses around menstruation demanded her constant attention – despite bomb threats and evacuations: “So on the one hand it gets to you: we have a war, and on the other hand you can’t stop thinking that in a moment everyone will see you bleeding.” Without proper consideration of their needs, women, girls, and others who have periods can be left feeling isolated and sidelined by relief efforts: “I think this is one of those experiences that women in war are left alone with and just have to deal with. They don’t talk about it among themselves, even if they have a problem because there is a shortage of water or sanitary pads, because they think there are more important things after all”.
The Aid Blind Spot
The sentiment that there are “more important things” is, unfortunately, reinforced in the action, or lack thereof, of humanitarian aid organisations to prioritise the deliverance of appropriate, necessary resources to menstruators in conflict zones. Despite unmistakeable need for effective, inclusive, and culturally sensitive aid, many humanitarian aid organisations fail to use sex disaggregated data (SADD) when delivering aid to conflict zones.
This means that the information used to understand the unique needs of people in crisis has not been analysed or broken down by sex (male/female/other) to effectively address the unique needs, vulnerabilities, and experiences of women, men, and gender-diverse individuals in crises. Shockingly, research from 2020 found that approximately half of all humanitarian needs overviews in the years prior did not use any SADD. Without analysing data in this way, aid organisations risk applying a ‘one size fits all' approach, meaning menstrual hygiene products are largely overlooked in non-food item distribution.
Negating sex disaggregated data does not only mean menstruators are left without the products that they need for safe and discrete menstruation. It means they are exposed to a higher risk of violence, famine, and exclusion from their communities in already devestated environments.
True impartiality in humanitarian response demands disaggregated data, ensuring aid can be provided solely based on need. As humanitarian funding faces more cuts, with a decline of nearly 5 billion USD in 2024, investment in disaggregated data analysis and use is critical to ienable efficient, effective, evidence-based programming that targets the needs of the most vulnerable. Prioritising menstrual health is, fundamentally, prioritising gender-responsive survival.
While the current focus is necessarily on immediate survival and dignity, women and girls are not merely victims of instability. They have always been, and continue to be, integral participants in community survival, peace, and reconciliation. Conversations about the unique impacts of conflict on those who menstruaten must be paired with recognition of their agency, and their inclusion in decision-making at every level, to ensure their needs are met and their perspectives reflected in politices, laws, and practices worldwide.
If you enjoyed reading this article, check out the other ways you can support us: