Food & Drink
Navdanya
Katie Hill visits Dr Vandana Shiva’s organic farm – where nine seeds meet Coca-Cola.
9 March 2014
On World Menstrual Hygiene Day (28 May), NGO drip by drip is launching Menstrual Dignity in Fashion, a new programme designed to confront one of the fashion industry’s most neglected workplace failures.
Many of the women making its clothes still do not have the conditions to manage their periods safely, privately or with dignity at work – once every four weeks.
The programme is focused on Bangladesh’s ready-made garment sector, the second-largest in the world. The industry directly employs around 4.2 million people, 45-60% of them women. Yet menstrual health is still too often treated as a private issue for workers to manage alone rather than a basic workplace standard. The result is predictable: shame, missed work, reduced comfort, lower productivity and avoidable health risks.
The first phase of the project found that 80% of female workers reported discomfort or shame in addressing menstrual needs at work, 90% faced educational, structural and social barriers to managing menstruation safely and with dignity, 96% said supervisors denied permission to use the bathroom and 97% said toilets did not even have bins.
‘When menstruation starts during work, we have no choice but to buy pads ourselves – the factory doesn’t provide any. If we ask for rest, it’s allowed, but they cut money from our earned leave. The pain and discomfort often become unbearable, yet we keep working through it. We are afraid to take leave because we can’t afford the salary cuts. Sometimes it feels like our bodies are asking for rest, but our reality doesn’t allow it because work pressure is high. It’s as if our needs don’t matter – only the work does.’
BELI KHATUN
Sewing operator at an RGM factory, from Charigram village, Ashulia, Savar, Dhaka
The pilot showed what can happen when menstrual health is treated as a workplace issue rather than a personal burden.
In 90% of selected factories, health-related absenteeism fell and productivity improved. The pilot also helped reduce stigma, build confidence, improve menstrual health practices and led more than 60% of participating factories to continue providing menstrual products after the project ended.
But it also exposed how deep the problem runs: male participation remained low, sanitation gaps persisted and too many women weren’t allowed adequate bathroom breaks. Generally female workers are expected to manage their menstruation in workplaces that were simply not built for them.
‘Menstrual health is still treated as invisible in too many supply chains, despite its impact reaching into every part of a worker’s life, her health, dignity, confidence, attendance, income and future. It is also still deeply under-researched, which has helped the industry avoid confronting the full scale of the problem. If workers do not have privacy, safe sanitation, access to products, and the freedom to use the bathroom when they need to, this is not a marginal issue. It is a workplace failure built into the system.’
AMIRA JEHIA
Founding Executive Director, drip by drip
Implemented with Bangladesh-based NGO Agroho Society, alongside brand partners Vaude, Amer Sports and funders Snocks and Beechfield Brands, Menstrual Dignity in Fashion has been developed to respond to that failure from the ground up and address an issue that remains under-researched and under-prioritised across the industry.
Running between September 2026 and December 2027, the programme will work across 10 ready-made garment factories in Dhaka, Gazipur and Chittagong, combining worker and management training, sanitation improvements, access to menstrual products and factory-level systems change.
A complementary independent research component, developed with LMU Munich, INSEAD and the University of Groningen, will sit alongside the programme to help identify which workplace levers are most effective in improving menstrual health and dignity on the factory floor.
The aim is to build stronger evidence for wider change across the sector and help ensure that menstrual health is no longer treated as invisible within supply chain standards, workplace rights and brand responsibility.
Menstrual Dignity in Fashion aims to train 9,000 workers in safe menstrual health and hygiene practices, provide 3,000 workers with safe menstrual products for 12 months, train 350 supervisors and 200 workers as Agents of Change and indirectly impact more than 60,000 people.
Unlike initiatives that stop at awareness alone, Menstrual Dignity in Fashion has been designed as a practical workplace intervention. It addresses the full chain of barriers that prevent women from managing menstruation safely and with dignity at work: stigma, poor infrastructure, weak workplace systems, limited access to products and the absence of management accountability.
It also recognises that meaningful change requires men to be part of the conversation, particularly in factory environments where supervisors and decision-makers shape conditions on the ground every day.
‘For many women workers, menstruation still comes with silence, discomfort and limitations that should not exist in a dignified workplace. The Menstrual Dignity in Fashion project is necessary to change that reality. It is about ensuring that women can work with comfort, confidence and dignity every day of the month. Our hope is simple but powerful: that no woman in the workplace particularly in RMGs/textile factories feels embarrassed, restricted, or unsupported because of a natural biological process.’
ATM RIDWANUL HAQUE
Managing Director of local partner organisation Agroho
Katie Hill visits Dr Vandana Shiva’s organic farm – where nine seeds meet Coca-Cola.
Toxic pesticide found in UK tampons at 40 times the drinking water limit, report reveals.
UN Women: 90% of surveyed women’s organisations are being pushed to a breaking point.
New UNICEF, Plan International and UN Women report reveals 30 years of uneven progress for adolescent girls.
