Period Leave Or Not?

Periods can be painful and messy, and it’s a public health issue no one really talks about. According to a 2012 study, 96 per cent of the female workforce (it’s 91 for males) is employed in the informal sector, where staying home due to menstrual pain usually means losing a day’s wages or, worse, getting replaced. So it did seem like a step in the right direction when a Mumbai-based digital media company last year announced that all female employees can be on paid leave on the first day of their period every month. But ensuring that the first-day off is also extended to the overwhelming majority of women is more difficult than ensuring minimum wages are paid, which too isn’t often the case.

So does menstruation add to the odds stacked against women at work? Different women have different experiences with the menstrual cycle. While some breeze through their periods, many others face severe pain, heavy bleeding, headache, nausea, depression and sleeplessness. According to Dr Rishma Dhillon Pai, consultant ­gynaecologist at Jaslok Hospital and Research Centre, Mumbai, menstrual pain or dysmenorrhoea affects nearly half of the women in the working age group, and 20 per cent of them may suffer from endometriosis or fibroids that may cause severe pain and bleeding.

Follow this story here: https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/period-leave-or-not-heres-what-women-have-to-say/301033