SANITARY PADS SHOULD BE FREE VS CONDOMS SHOULD BE SOLD

By: Kankunda Peninah, Kagitumba High School

Sanitary pads and condoms are equivalent when it comes to their significance, when you look at it, they can both be in favor of girls, because one obviates early and unexpected pregnancies and the other serves as a sanitation facility during girls menstruation. However, in regards to the availability of the two, sanitary pads should be more circulated freely in schools and all over the country to support young girls who can't speak about their periods for the first time, they should be free to support young girls in villages who don't know the importance of pads and who can't afford them and also young girls who are orphans and homeless. While condoms, should be sold because they are cheap and affordable compared to sanitary pads and they shouldn't be given a high priority over sanitary pads considering the fact that menstruation is not a choice while sex is.

Sanitary pads should be free and circulated into all schools, near homes or even at the hospitals to support young girls who can't speak about their periods for the first time: This is because most of the time young girls are not open to speak about their menstruation periods for their very first time, they find it hard to explain to either their parents or guardians that they need pads. And this causes girls to miss their classes when they are in periods because they are not comfortable but when pads are circulated freely and easily, it won’t be a challenge to young girls anymore, and this I can relate because it was also not easy for me to speak about it to my parents for the first time and my parents never talked to me about it before it happened, so what saved was the fact that I had big sisters who knew what it was and they were ready to talk about it to any one but I can imagine fellow young girls out there who doesn't have big sisters and whose parents never said a word about it before, I would say this is one of the outstanding reason why sanitary pads should be circulated freely. 

Sanitary pads should be free and circulated everywhere, even in villages, to support young girls out there who don't know the importance of pads and who can't afford them: first of all, I would say some young girls mostly in villages don’t know these kinds of sanitation facilities used during menstruation, and secondly they can’t even afford to buy them. for them they know and believe that even their parents didn’t use sanitary pads and they survived big times plus their parent’s mind set also thinks and works the same. So these are the kind of girls that need support through circulation of free sanitary pads.

Orphans and homeless young girls should have access to free sanitary pads: I can not forget that there are girls out there who are orphans, they act like parents to their siblings, they have a lot to take care of and this little support of free pads can mean a lot to them. And we also have other kinds of girls who are homeless, not just orphans and for these ones it would be rare for them to even think of buying sanitary pads which would be of a paramount importance for them to get free sanitary pads.

Condoms should be sold because they are cheap and affordable and they shouldn't be given a high priority over sanitary pads: Yes condoms are also of a greet use as mentioned above and they should also be circulated because they help in avoiding early pregnancies and that's great too but if we are to make priorities of which should be prioritized over which, sanitary pads should be given a high priority. And on the other hand, condoms are even affordable compared to sanitary pads which is why they should be sold. 

To sum up, it is with great confidence to say that sanitary pads should be free while condoms should be sold because honestly girls have no control over menstruation period, it has to happen no matter what [it is non negotiable]. But we all have control over sex, we can choose to have it or not to have it, or else we can wait until we have condoms to have sex it would still be okay but you can't wait to have monthly periods. So I call up all girls out there to speak about it, shout about it and fight for it, until it happens because this is a project that could have been implemented long time ago. Sanitary pads should be free and circulated all over not condoms, condoms should be sold.