Conceptualizing a Human Right to Menstrual Health - Breaking Societal Taboos and Promoting Female Health (CReaTe)

The project fills a critical gap in women’s right to health by investigating how human rights can be leveraged to promote menstrual health.

Surrounded by stigma and taboo, menstruation has so far been narrowly framed as a hygienic issue that needs to be managed by simply giving access to hygienic products to protect women’s rights to privacy and dignity. However, this narrow approach fails to recognize menstruality as a whole, namely, the entire menstrual cycle (ovulation & menstruation from menarche to menopause), recognized as a vital sign, and inadvertently reinforces the idea that menstruation is shameful and needs to be concealed or suppressed.

This narrow “menstrual hygiene management” approach overshadows other critical human rights, in particular women’s rights to health, body literacy and agency. The project investigates how human rights can be leveraged to decrease menstrual stigma and create a more positive narrative around menstruality, and by conceptualizing a comprehensive human right to menstrual health for the first time.