There’s an assumption in this side of the world that an inmate is a man. Hence, male inmates are the focus of the cries for criminal justice reforms. However, statistics obtained from the Nigerian Prisons Services has shown that female inmates represent two per cent of the total number of inmates in Nigerian prisons.
This percentage reflects a figure of 1,500 female inmates out of over 73,000 inmates. The Nigeria Prisons as well as other prisons in Africa are characterised by poor funding, overcongestion amongst many other anomalies which has resulted in the poor health status of many inmates.
There are a lot of worries inmates at Nigerian Prisons are faced with. But there is none that engages our interest like that of menstrual health. Of course, there have been cries for criminal justice reforms all over the world, and developing countries are not left out. Such cries have given birth to First Step Act Bill in the USA, where it was signed into law that female inmates be provided with free menstrual products to protect their rights of dignity. Looking at this bill, one will wonder how a nation as developed as the United States of America is just recognizing the need for female inmates to be given free menstrual products in 2019.
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The world needs to come to reality that menstrual hygiene product for inmate is a necessity and not a luxury or privilege of any kind which can be debated.
While menstruation is a topic that many find inappropriate to discuss in public, even in the 21st century, it’s a necessary topic which must be taken with national concern. A study by UNICEF shows that one out of every fifteen girl children drop out of school as result of lack of menstrual care. If one could think of the fact that young girls who are roaming freely are finding it hard to get good menstrual hygiene, what can we think of women who are incarcerated? According to a remark made by a woman living in a prison in Nigeria when queried about the menstrual hygiene in prison, “if our relatives don’t bring menstrual products for us, there’s nothing for us to use but to rely on the extremely expensive pads being sold in the prison.
This is what we spend the money we make in prison on”.
Quite apart from the undisputed reality that menstrual hygiene products are out of reach for female inmates, another worrisome snag is the absence of regular water supply in prisons. It would be agreed by many that the absence of water and soap in the cleaning up of menstruating women could lead to a myriad of infections.
It’s an incontrovertible truth that ignoring the menstrual health hygiene in prisons would be damaging, as the prison which is meant to serve as a correctional system would produce in disguise, beasts among female inmates instead of beauties due to the mental and physical damage that would be brought upon the inmates by poor menstrual hygiene.
This is a crying call to the Ministry of Interior Affairs and the general public to the salient and silent issue amongst others being faced by inmates in Nigerian prisons.
Abass Oyeyemi,