Union women and child development minister and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Smriti Irani on Wednesday said that she is against 'paid menstruation leave’. The union minister said that menstruation is not a “handicap" and therefore does not warrant a “paid leave policy". Irani made this statement in response to a question asked by Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) member Manoj Kumar Jha in the upper house on the menstrual hygiene policy in the country.
Smriti Irani said, “As a menstruating woman, menstruation and the menstruation cycle is not a handicap, it’s a natural part of women’s life journey…We should not propose issues where women are denied equal opportunities just because somebody who does not menstruate has a particular viewpoint towards menstruation".
She said that “a small proportion of women/ girls suffer from severe dysmenorrhea or similar complaints, and most of these cases are manageable by medication."
“However, the issue of menstruation and its associated activities are surrounded by silence, often treated with shame and associated with social taboos that restrict mobility, freedom and access to normal activities for menstruating persons, and many times leads to their harassment and social exclusion. It becomes even more sensitive when a girl/ menstruating person is unaware of the changes that she undergoes emotionally and physically while facing her menstrual cycle for the first time," Smriti Irani responded.
Last week, Smriti Irani responding to Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, told the Lok Sabha that there is “no proposal under the consideration of the government to make provision for paid menstrual leave mandatory for all workplaces".
She informed that the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has formulated a draft menstrual hygiene policy in consultation with stakeholders. She said the central government has already implemented a scheme for the promotion of menstrual hygiene among girls in the 10-19 age group. Irani also highlighted the other initiatives taken by the various ministries for the promotion of menstrual hygiene.