Kenyan Senator Wears Blood-Stained Pants to Parliament to Fight Stigma Around Menstruation
A Kenyan senator is standing up against period shame.
Gloria Orwoba wore a white suit stained with blood to parliament last month to fight the stigma surrounding menstruation affecting Kenyan women and girls.
According to AP, the 36-year-old, who had been caught off guard by her monthly period, noticed the stain on her pants just before entering the building in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.
Orwoba told the BBC of her decision to attend parliament, "When I got off the car, a senate staff ran towards me to cover me and begged me to go back inside the car. Since I am always advocating against period shame, I thought I should go ahead and walk the talk."
Orwoba was criticized by some MPS, including another female senator, for the move. According to AP, Orwoba's male colleagues called the issue "taboo and private."
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Brian Inganga/AP/Shutterstock Gloria Orwoba at Mkuru Community Center primary school on Tuesday
According to the BBC, female senator Tabitha Mutinda asked the senate speaker Amason Kingi to rule on whether Orwoba had adhered to the parliament's dress code and called her appearance "indecent." "You don't understand if she's on the normal woman cycle or she's faking it, and it is so indecent," she said. According to the BBC, Mutinda added that Orwoba was not setting a good example to women and young girls.
Orwoba reportedly responded by saying she was disappointed to be questioned over her appearance, adding it was "an accident that is natural...I have stained my clothes." She continued to the senate, per the BBC, "I think I'm dressed as per the standing orders - I'm covered, I have a suit, I have collars, I'm just short of a tie."
Kingi ruled that Orowba should leave parliament according to the BBC, while AP reported that Orwoba walked out.
Brian Inganga/AP/Shutterstock Kenyan senator Gloria Orwoba
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"Having periods is never a crime," he said, per the BBC. "Sen Gloria, I sympathize with you that you are going through the natural act of menstruation, you have stained your wonderful suit, I'm asking you to leave so that you go change and come back with clothes that are not stained."
After leaving the senate building, Orwoba is reported to have stayed in her same clothes and spoken to the media, before visiting a primary school in the capital, where she distributed sanitary towels.
In a video shared on Instagram by @feminist last month, Orwoba can be seen wearing the suit after leaving the senate. She told the media, "That's the kind of period stigma that girls and women are having out there, to the extent that they actually kill themselves, because I don't think people understand it's the whole, the stigma starts from the point of not accepting a very natural thing like having a period."
According to The Guardian, in 2019 14-year-old Kenyan schoolgirl died by suicide after a teacher reportedly shamed her when she stained her uniform during her first period.
On Tuesday, Orwoba, who is campaigning for free sanitary products for girls and women, was pictured handing out sanitary pads to girls at a primary school in Nairobi wearing a fuchsia pantsuit.
Orwoba told AP that the incident had encouraged her to concentrate on drafting a bill calling on the Kenyan government to provide an annual supply of sanitary pads to all schoolgirls and women in prison. "For legislators to feel the urgency of legislating things into law, they must be subjected to the advocacy and the noise," she said.
