ACHIEVING BALANCE – CONDOMS VS SANITARY PADS

 

By: UJINEZA Ursuline, Gashora girls Academy

The average person has sex 5778 times in their lifetime, on the other hand, a woman has nearly 450 periods before they hit menopause. While out of that ridiculously huge number, sex can be done with or without condoms, during the 450 times, nearly 3500 days accounting to 10 years of blood loss, a woman needs a pad. Since reproduction is nearly impossible, the only importance behind 'condom sex' is just old plain pleasure. Menstruation is neither pleasurable nor a choice hence why, to ensure proper girls' education, promote good health and protect the environment, sanitary products should be free and condoms sold.

Sanitary pads should be free to make girls' education possible. To ensure good hygiene, a sanitary pad must be changed every five hours, comparing that to the number of periods a woman has in her lifetime, the number of pads necessary to the average woman, add up to a copious amount and so does the money used to purchase them, unfortunately, a great number of young female students can barely afford food not to say pads. A free condom won't feed these girls however a free pad will, because they won't be skipping school on period days, or dropping out and giving up their only hope of a better life and better food: a good education.

 In terms of good health, free sanitary pads promote while free condoms impede. 70 % of menstrual problems occur due to the usage of unhealthy sanitary napkins. These problems evolve into toxic shock syndrome, reproductive tract infections (RTI), and possibilities of cervical cancer; all of which might hinder a woman's chances to reproduce. Many would argue that condoms also prevent STDs, however, they do not work against all STDs. More importantly, when an individual chooses to have unprotected sex and contract a disease, they chose to do so, on the contrary, when a woman is born with a uterus without her consent, she is forced to take care of it and when she can't, she had no say in the matter when her vaginal health deteriorated.

Finally, condoms pollute the environment. Most brands of condoms are non-biodegradable, this means that, they cannot be decomposed or dissolved by natural agents. Providing free condoms is basically motivating people to have more sex hence use more condoms and as a result, introduce more pollutants into the environment. Even though most sanitary products including sanitary pads are also found under the non-biodegradable waste list, with no other known alternative, we have no choice but to put them under necessary evils.

On the whole, free pads give various girls a chance to go to school and they allow women who didn’t choose to menstruate to care of their periods properly, conversely free condoms, being non-biodegradable, destroy our environment and let us not forget that condom use is a choice while sanitary pads are a need. For these reasons sanitary pads should be available for free and condoms should be sold to achieve balance.