What do African women do when they have their period and there are no pads or tampons available?

Answer 1

They bleed onto clothing or use things like old rags or even newspaper, the same goes for poor women in countries like India, not only do they not have menstrual supplies but lack of adequate hygiene means that many women have to drop out of school when they reach menarche. In India girls trying to find bathrooms during menstruation can result in them being gang raped or murdered - a recent case occured where two 11 year old girls were gang raped and hung from a tree, they were trying to find a bathroom.

Thus why there are projects like AFRIpads where people donate cloth pad kits to girls in countries like Africa - there are a lot of similar projects, often sponsored by menstrual product companies or supported by charities like WaterAid. This is a huge issue because lack of menstrual products risks women's future as well as their health and safety.

Answer 2

Africa is an awefully big place, in some areas girls will use the same products (tampons, pads, cups) that girls in countries like America will use, where as in poorer rural areas girls have no sanitary products or even adequate hygiene like clean running water or toilets.

In poorer areas many may just bleed onto clothing, or will use rags of old cloth like our great grandmothers may have done once upon a time. Many charities work to try to change this, projects like Pads4Girls from Lunapads work to send reusable cloth menstrual pads and even menstrual cups over to poor girls - this isn't just a nice thing to do, but also helps these girls as it allows them to go to school during menstruation, which in turn helps their communities too.

Answer 3

They Menstruate like women in non remote tribes, there are no changes, it's just the same as women in New York to Paris, London Sydney Auckland.