In the rugged highlands of Kaabong District, where the wind whistles through the rocky ridges of Mount Morungole, menstruation remains a silent tragedy. Here, among the indigenous Ik community, girls vanish from classrooms not because they lack ambition, but because they bleed.
Without sanitary pads, they spend their menstrual days hidden indoors, ashamed, unprotected, and forgotten by a country that once promised them dignity.
Unfulfilled promise
Ten years ago, on 11 November 2015, during a campaign rally at Alira Primary School, Akura Sub-county, Alebtong District, President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni vowed that every school-going girl in Uganda would receive free sanitary pads in the 2017/2018 financial year.
He presented the pledge as a practical step toward curbing absenteeism and dropout rates among adolescent girls, insisting that no child should be denied education because of ‘a natural biological process.’
‘I want all our daughters to attend school and remain there until they complete their studies. One of the reasons that forces our daughters out of school is that when their periods start, they do not have sanitary pads. When they are in class, they soil their dresses. So, they run away from school,’ Museveni said at the time.
But as the nation braces for another election in January 2026, the pledge has evaporated into thin air – another promise buried under budgetary excuses and bureaucratic silence. The Ministry of Education and Sports admitted in 2017 that no funds had been allocated to the initiative.
Since then, the issue has resurfaced only as rhetoric, leaving thousands of girls, such as those in Kaabong, to face the consequences of the government’s inaction.
Marita Lotukei Lokiru, 40, a resident of Korumo Village in Morungole Parish, knows that pain too well. Married for 25 years, she vividly recalls the morning she woke up to find blood trickling down her thighs, unaware that her body had entered womanhood.
‘I learnt about menstruation the day it happened to me. No one had ever told me what it was. I was terrified,’ she says softly.
For the first decade of her marriage, Lotukei wore animal skins and beads, the traditional attire of Ik women, until fabric clothing reached the community about 15 years ago. But even with that shift, dignity remained out of reach. To this day, she owns no underwear and cannot afford sanitary towels.
‘To buy sanitary pads, one must travel more than 80 kilometres to Kaabong Town. A packet costs Shs5,000, yet the transport fare for a round trip is about Shs40,000. Even if you send someone on a boda boda, you must pay Shs30,000, plus the cost of the pads,’ she explains.
Unable to afford such a luxury, Lotukei says she lets the blood flow freely until her cycle ends, changing her skirt only when it becomes soaked. She does not use pieces of cloth because there is nothing to hold them in place.
‘I do not know how to use pads or how to pad myself with folded cloth. Since I do not have a knicker, what will hold the cloth? This is not only my situation. It is the same for several women and young girls here,’ she says.
Taboo
In Ik culture, menstruation is cloaked in silence, a subject rarely discussed between mothers and daughters. It is a taboo that Lotukei unknowingly passed on to her two daughters.
‘They went through the same struggle. They did not tell me when their periods started. It is considered shameful to talk about such things,’ she admits.
Doreen Nakwang, a member of the Village Health Team (VHT) in Morungole Central, explains that most menstrual health education comes through schools, yet the only primary school in Morungole Sub-county offers classes only up to Primary Four. This means most girls drop out before they learn how to manage their periods safely.
‘At health facilities, mothers receive a small piece of cotton wool when giving birth, but when they go back home, they revert to using torn rags or nothing at all. Some have suffered infections as a result,’ she says.
At one point, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) offered training to women and girls on how to make reusable pads. However, few attended.
‘Many have heard about sanitary pads, but they have never seen or used one. Even though the community has adopted fabricated clothing, it is extremely rare to find anyone using soap. People rarely wash their clothes. When a skirt or cloth is stained with menstrual blood, they go to the river, soak the garment, and wash it using a plant locally known as Daris,’ Nakwang notes.
Daris is a root shaped like cassava. When rubbed in water, it produces bubbles similar to soap and releases a pleasant fragrance, making it a natural cleansing agent.
Monica Nachapio explains that in their village, girls are confined indoors by their parents during their menstrual period, letting the blood flow freely until menstruation comes to an end.
At Timu Primary School, about 40 kilometers away, Mangadalena Nakur, the senior woman teacher, says menstrual-hygiene education has helped reduce the number of dropouts.
‘We teach girls how to make and use reusable pads, and that has helped keep more of them in school. However, in Morungole, especially in the five villages of Morungole Parish, girls do not wear pads. Some parents marry off their daughters as soon as they begin menstruating because they believe she is now a woman and can bring dowry,’ she explains.
Nakur adds that when the teachers follow up on absentee girls, sometimes, they find that they have been married off or are locked indoors, menstruating.
Esther Namukul, a Primary Seven pupil from Koror Village, says, NGO support, though welcome, is far from adequate.
‘There is an organisation that gives us sanitary pads. Each girl receives one packet per term, which is not enough. Some girls drop out because of shame, especially when boys tease them. There are only two girls in Primary Seven this year,’ she explains.
Need for change
Loturi Maximillian, Kaabong’s Senior Education Officer, says the challenge of menstruating girls dropping out of school cuts across the district.
‘Accessing sanitary towels, particularly in the remote parts of the district where jobs are scarce and access to schools is equally difficult, is not easy. A few NGOs are helping communities to make reusable pads, but only a handful, such as Kakamari and Kalaunga primary schools have benefited. We are appealing to partners to expand the initiative so that no girl’s education is disrupted by something as natural as menstruation,’ he notes.
Ten years after President Museveni’s promise, the girls of Morungole still bleed in silence, some hidden behind mud walls, others walking home with stained skirts, their dreams slowly fading with every missed school day.
In this corner of the country, menstruation is not just a biological process; it is a line drawn on the ground, separating those who learn and those who are left behind.
Menstruation and absenteeism
A study, titled, Effect of menstruation on school attendance of girls along with water, sanitation, and hygiene services in Northwest Ethiopia, published in January 2025, in the Pan African Medical Journal, investigated how menstruation affects school attendance among school girls and assessed the prevalence of missed school days and factors for menstrual-related school absenteeism.
1. WASH facilities: access to school WASH facilities (lack of access to consistent supplies of water, lack of access to segregated and friendly toilets, and hand hygiene facilities) influences schoolgirls’ attendance and educational achievements.
2. Access to menstrual absorbent materials: to prevent physical discomfort and leakages, schoolgirls need safe and adequate menstrual-absorbent materials. In this study, menstrual-related missed school days were significantly associated with inaccessibility to menstrual-absorbent materials.
3.Socio-cultural constraints: this has been shown to result in a sense of shame, anxiety, fear, and embarrassment that contribute to missing school and poor performance at school. Evidence shows that schoolgirls report feelings of discomfort, fear, and shame related to menstruation.
4. Menstrual-related pain: this was the most common reason for schoolgirls to miss school days during their menstruation.