


The monthly burden doesn't end there. The girls explain how they get up early or stay out late to wash the used strips - in a quiet moment when no-one's around to see. Hanging them up to dry in the sun would be too public a display of an issue that's taboo here. So the girls find a dark corner inside to dry their rags. And then the answer that I somehow found saddest of all: "Do your mothers help you?" Their heads shake again: "No," says Benku's friend. "My mother asked my aunt to explain everything to me when I got my first period." Another girl was given an old chitenge and a lesson in what to do by a neighbour. A third was sent to her grandmother's for a week. This monthly struggle has been the same for generations. But unlike their mothers, aunts and grandmothers these young women have a champion, who's determined to tackle the problem.

