Mayuri Bhattacharjee: Loo Watch, and Sikun Relief Foundation

Women’s menstrual health is a problem that is socially blindsided and systemically under-researched, not just in India but worldwide. It is therefore hardly surprising that awareness-building around the impact of poor menstrual health, and the necessity for sanitary disposal methods, is wholly lacking in the country. A country that sells sanitary napkins in black plastic bags, impregnable for onlookers, then proceeds to dispose them in a similar way— as if to shield the very process of menstruation from any discussion, keeping it hidden away in sheaths of plastic and social stigma.

Mayuri Bhattacharjee, the founder of Loo Watch and Sikun Relief Foundation, seeks to dismantle this unhealthy cycle of silence and stigma around women’s health, in a holistic, inclusive ways. She shares with us, her vision of a “360-degree approach” towards menstrual health awareness, healthy and sustainable disposal, nutrition information for better health as access to sanitary washrooms for women.

It all started with the grim observation that there were hardly any public toilets available for women while they travel, which encouraged Mayuri Bhattacharjee to undertake audits of public toilets in a personal capacity. “Women suffer, but they forget it because they are used to it. And, because it os considered too dirty to talk about”. Hence, the problem was not just the absence of infrastructure, but also the pervasive problem of not talking about women’s health needs. Building awareness, therefore became as important as building brick-and-mortar toilets.

Loo Watch and Sikun Relief Foundation, based largely in Assam but with a pan-Indian online presence, work on menstrual health, behaviour change and sanitation, by carrying out interventions in rural areas, especially schools in both rural as well as semi-urban spaces. This includes an advocacy for women’s access to clean toilets not just in public places but also educational institutions. According to date shared by the Ministry of Water and Sanitation, only 53% of government schools have separate washrooms for girls, while 132 million households in India do not have toilets. In fact, there is more phone usage than toilet usage in India

The organisations focus their attention on, among various other places, the tea gardens of Assam, which, beneath the picturesque veneer of a tourist’s dream— battle problems of anaemia and high maternal mortality rates, due to lack of awareness as well as sanitation. This instance highlights the need for a cross-sectional, justice-based approach towards solving women’s health troubles which are not just medical but also social. The answers lie not just building infrastructure but also changing parochial mindsets about women’s bodies, pains, deaths and lifestyle.

The critical aspect of Menstrual Waste Management is seen not as an integral part of health and sanitation but more as a “distraction” from the primary focus on building toilets. The measly 12% of women who use sanitary napkins, use up 58,500 million pads per year, most of which are made from plastics. The amount of non-biodegradable wastes, therefore, become staggering. Adding to this enormous problem, is the shame associated with pad disposal, which makes many women burn or bury their used pad, or just dump them in open fields and ponds. Not only that, 94% of women face low self-esteem while burning sanitary napkins, which indicates an unhealthy relationship between women and their body and sanitation.

Mayuri Bhattacharjee also points out the problem with the pads distributed by ASHA workers, which are too small and do not last for long. They are distributed in packages of 5 for Rs. 5, but it does not last for the duration of one complete cycle, leaving girls and women with few options later. 

With a view to tackling this wide-range of inter-connected problems, Loo Watch and Sikun Relief Foundation are fostering more and more dialogue around these issues. They have recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Sonitpur district for promoting healthy toilet usage, especially in tea gardens. They are also encouraging more and more men to join the dialogue. While hosting an “open space” for awareness and discussions at the Swachhta Mela in Tezpur, they noticed a lot many men hovering curiously. Bhattacharjee realized that men are also culturally discouraged from taking more than a sexual and reproductive interest in women’s bodies. 

Mayuri Bhattacharjee, through Loo Watch and Sikun Relief Foundation, advocates for a more humane, context-sensitive approach to women’s health and sanitation, counter to the “engineering approach” which focuses more on building structures and infrastructures rather than focusing equally on behaviour change.