Breaking the Silence: An Overview of Sexual and Reproductive Rights from Menstrual Health Perspective

Menstruation is an important aspect of women and adolescent girls’ life. Our society still considers menstruation as a taboo. Menstruating women face several socio-religious challenges when acceptance to menstruation is concerned. Open discourses about periods and its hygiene can help women to come out from the existing myths of menstruation. Healthy and informative discussion about menstruation or menstrual hygiene can allow women and girls to deal better with bleeding cycle. It is a human right of every menstruating woman and girl to manage periods without any socio-cultural hurdles. It acts as a starting point for discussion around sexual and reproductive health rights (SRHR). It is an important determinant and result of SRHR. When the human rights, including sexual and reproductive rights of adolescent girls and women who menstruate are met, they are more likely to manage their periods in a safe and healthy way. A holistic approach needed for the inclusivity of menstrual hygiene in the SRHR that helps in overall development of women. With this background the present paper conceptualises the phenomenon of menstruation, menstrual health and Sexual Reproductive rights. Further the paper tries to explore the integration of menstrual hygiene in sexual and reproductive rights of women. The study will be descriptive in nature and secondary sources of data will be used. The present paper will be divided into three sections. Section 1st deals with Introduction, Methodology and Objectives. Section 2nd deals with Discussion, and 3rd section deals with Conclusion. The study is significant because it helps us to understand inclusion of menstrual hygiene in sexual and reproductive rights.