Kerala moots three-day menstrual leave for schoolgirls

While university students in Kerala had been given the benefit of availing themselves of menstrual leaves a couple of years ago, the new United Democratic Front (UDF) government led by V.D. Satheesan is leading the way by extending it to school students too.

Governor Rajendra Arlekar’s policy address in the Assembly on Friday unveiled plans for ‘Project Menstrual Dignity.’ The project proposes to make educational institutions and public spaces friendly for girls and women. As part of it, girl school students will get up to three days of menstrual leave a month. That is not all. They will be provided weekend catch-up classes, so that they do not fall behind in their studies.

“The government’s vision is to transform Kerala into the most woman-friendly State in the country. Steps will be taken to implement equal pay for women in workplaces,” the Governor said in the policy address.

The government proposes to put in place Child Care Rules, as mandated under the Maternity Benefit Act, 1961, to ensure that all public offices, industrial establishments, IT parks, and all establishments with more than 50 employees run safe, high-quality day care centres and creches.

Special benefits will be extended to women working in the unorganised sector, including six months of maternity leave.

Public restroom facilities will be arranged in all major towns across Kerala.

Steps will be taken to make sanitary napkins, footwear and other necessities available to women.

The government also plans to implement a ‘Destitute and Orphan-Free Kerala Initiative.’ As part of it, it will promote mission-mode adoption campaigns, drawing from the deinstitutionalisation principle of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015.

It also proposes to chart out a network of trained and well-compensated neighbourhood foster families, making Kerala India’s first ‘orphan-free’ State.