Every month, millions of girls and women in India manage their periods without safe products, private toilets or the right information. It affects their health, their schooling and their dignity. Here is what the evidence shows, and what works.
Sources: review of 138 Indian studies, BMJ Open, 2016 (girls) · NFHS-6, 2023-24 (villages) · NFHS-5, 2019-21 (poorest homes). Rounded: 1 in 2 stands for 48% and 46%.
In a government school in Udham Singh Nagar, Uttarakhand, girls told us about their first period. Some thought they had hurt themselves. Others believed their stomach had burst, or that they were dying. Most had been told nothing at all.
That silence is what this page is about.
Period poverty is when a girl or woman cannot manage her period safely and with dignity, because she lacks products, knowledge, a usable toilet, a way to dispose of used pads, or the freedom to talk about it.
It is not only about money. A girl may have pads at home and still miss school because her school toilet has no door or water. Another may have a toilet, but no one has ever told her what a period is.
The World Health Organization has called for menstrual health to be recognised and addressed as a health and human rights issue, not a hygiene issue alone (WHO, 2022).
Take any one away, and a girl's period becomes a problem again.
young women still manage their periods without a safe, hygienic method.
of adolescent girls in rural India use only hygienic methods. The rest still fall back on cloth.
is roughly how many schools in India still have no girls' toilet of any kind.
of rural government schools had no usable girls' toilet when surveyors visited.
of rural government schools had no drinking water when surveyors visited.
how many schools have a working pad machine or safe disposal. No national count is published.
Behind every one of these figures is a girl or a woman managing her period with old cloth, no water, and no one to ask.
For an adolescent girl, a woman, a mother, the gaps above add up over a lifetime.
Girls stay home on heavy days, afraid of staining and teasing. The days add up to weeks of lost learning.
Unsafe materials, and no private place to wash, are linked with reproductive and urinary tract infections.
Pain and heavy bleeding are dismissed as normal. Conditions like anaemia, PCOS and endometriosis are found years later.
Kept from the kitchen, from prayer, from family. Taught to stay quiet, and to teach her daughter the same.
With nowhere safe to dispose, pads are burned, buried or thrown in the open.
None of this is inevitable. All of it can be prevented.
See what worksNearly 8 in 10 young women in India now use a hygienic method during their periods. When Pinkishe began in 2017, the latest national survey put it below 6 in 10. The progress is real, and the work is far from finished.
Women aged 15 to 24 using a hygienic method during their period. Source: National Family Health Survey, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. NFHS-6 counts reusable and disposable sanitary pads, tampons and menstrual cups; earlier rounds also counted locally prepared napkins, so the last step is not exactly like for like.
Government schemes, schools, health workers and many organisations, Pinkishe among them, helped make this change. Today 97.3 per cent of India's schools have a girls' toilet (UDISE+ 2024-25), and since January 2026 menstrual health is part of every girl's right to life. But progress is not the same as reach. The hard facts above show how far there is still to go.
Schoolgirls laughing together during a Pinkishe menstrual health workshop.
For a girl in a classroom, or a woman in a village, a national average means nothing if the help never reaches her.
Girls stay home on heavy days, afraid of stains and teasing, or because the toilet has no water.
In Pinkishe's 2025 baseline across five districts, girls described missing school on heavy bleeding days. In several schools, pad machines and incinerators had been installed, then broke, were locked away or went unused within months. A toilet is not the same as a usable one.
Unsafe materials, and no private place to wash, are linked with reproductive and urinary tract infections.
Studies of women in Odisha found unhygienic practices linked with a higher risk of infections such as bacterial vaginosis, and a private place to wash and safe materials reduced it (PLOS ONE, 2015; BMC Infectious Diseases, 2018). What lowers the risk: a clean product changed often enough, a private place to wash, and soap and water.
A period is a sign of health. In silence, warning signs like anaemia, PCOS or endometriosis go unseen.
Doctors increasingly treat the menstrual cycle as a vital sign. A girl or woman should see a doctor if her periods are very painful, very heavy or very irregular, and should never be told it is just normal. In our baseline, few girls with infections had seen a doctor, out of embarrassment.
Taught as impurity for generations, it passes from mother to daughter. It was learned. It can be unlearned.
In many homes, girls and women are still kept from the kitchen, from prayer or from family during their periods. Many families see this as rest or tradition, not cruelty. The harm is the shame, and a girl left without knowledge of her own body. Education before the first period changes that.
Fathers buy the pads. Brothers tease, or don't. Teachers let her leave class, or don't. They shape her period.
In our baseline, some boys tampered with school vending machines, and teasing is one reason girls give for staying at home. Good programmes include boys and men in age-appropriate sessions, without taking space away from girls.
With nowhere safe to dispose, pads are burned, buried, flushed or thrown in the open, harming everyone.
India's Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016, require sanitary waste to be wrapped and disposed of separately. Safe disposal is part of the answer, not an afterthought: covered bins, collection, and the right products.
Since January 2026, menstrual health is part of the right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution, and every school for classes 6 to 12 has clear duties.
The Supreme Court held that menstrual health is part of the right to life. It directed free menstrual products, vending machines, safe disposal, menstrual education, teacher training and annual inspection in schools for classes 6 to 12.
The Court updated the product standard to compostable products meeting ISO 17088 read with IS 5405, directed states towards reusable options, ordered surprise inspections, and asked states to report gaps, not only achievements.
No single item solves period poverty. What works is the whole set, together and for long enough: products always available, safe disposal, usable toilets, education for girls, boys and teachers, and someone in the school responsible for keeping it all running.
Every girl who learns about her period before it arrives is a girl who will never think she is dying.
Friends at school, and at ease. Education before the first period matters as much as pads.
The Supreme Court has made it a duty. Government will lead, but it cannot do this alone. Companies and individuals each have a part to play. Here is yours.
Menstrual health is now a national priority. Government and society need your active support.
Put menstrual health on your CSR agenda.
Tonight, a girl will fold an old rag and hope no one notices. Your support can reach her before her next period.
Support a girl's menstrual health for a whole year.
Not being able to manage a period safely and with dignity, because of a lack of products, knowledge, toilets, disposal or freedom to talk about it.
No. Knowledge, usable toilets, safe disposal and stigma matter just as much.
That it is part of the right to life under Article 21, with clear duties for schools, including free products, vending machines, disposal, education, teacher training and inspection.
Because brothers, fathers, classmates and teachers shape whether a girl can manage her period without fear or teasing.
Because in many homes the subject is never discussed. Mothers often pass on the silence they grew up with. Schools and trusted adults can break that cycle.
Menstrual hygiene management means a girl or woman can use a clean product to absorb or collect blood, change it in privacy as often as needed, wash with soap and water, and dispose of used products safely. Today the wider term is menstrual health, which also includes knowledge, health care and freedom from shame.
Disposable sanitary pads, reusable cloth pads, menstrual cups and period panties are all safe when used and cleaned correctly. The right choice depends on the girl or woman, and on whether she has water, privacy and a way to dispose of used products. Clean cloth, washed and dried in the sun, can also be used safely.
Menstrual Hygiene Day is marked every year on 28 May. The date was chosen because the average period lasts about five days and the average cycle about 28 days.
Yes. Periods that are very painful, very heavy or very irregular can be an early sign of conditions such as anaemia, thyroid problems, PCOS, endometriosis or fibroids. A girl or woman with these should see a doctor, and should never be told it is just normal.
Not if it is kept clean. Cloth that is washed with soap, dried fully in the sun and stored in a clean place can be used safely. The risk comes from cloth that is damp, dirty, reused without washing or shared.
This page is written by Pinkishe Foundation, a specialist implementation organisation for menstrual health. Since 2017 we have worked in schools and communities in 25 states and 3 union territories, and in 2025 we ran our own baseline study in government schools in five districts. Every figure here comes from a named public source or from our own fieldwork.
1. International Institute for Population Sciences and Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4), 2015-16, India fact sheet.
2. International Institute for Population Sciences and Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5), 2019-21, India report.
3. International Institute for Population Sciences and Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. National Family Health Survey (NFHS-6), 2023-24, India fact sheet, released 29 May 2026.
4. Ministry of Education. UDISE+ 2024-25.
5. Monitoring WASH and school dropouts in India: is there adequate data? An assessment of four national databases. Journal of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene for Development, 2024.
6. Das P, Baker KK, Dutta A and others. Menstrual hygiene practices, WASH access and the risk of urogenital infection in women from Odisha, India. PLOS ONE, 2015.
7. Torondel B, Sinha S, Mohanty JR and others. Association between unhygienic menstrual management practices and prevalence of lower reproductive tract infections, Odisha, India. BMC Infectious Diseases, 2018.
8. Supreme Court of India. Dr Jaya Thakur v Government of India, 2026 INSC 97 (30 January 2026) and 2026 INSC 994 (1 September 2026).
9. Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016.
10. World Health Organization. Statement on menstrual health and rights, 2022.
11. Pinkishe Foundation. Nari Samman baseline report, 2025.
12. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Committee opinion on menstruation in girls and adolescents: using the menstrual cycle as a vital sign, 2015.
13. Pratham. Annual Status of Education Report (Rural) 2024, school observations in 15,728 government schools.
14. Menstrual hygiene practices among adolescent women in rural India: a cross-sectional study. BMC Public Health, 2022 (analysis of NFHS-5).
15. van Eijk AM and others. Menstrual hygiene management among adolescent girls in India: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMJ Open, 2016 (138 studies; source of the two school facts in the strip at the top of this page).
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