A single sanitary pad is a luxury item, let alone a box of tampons. I read accounts of girls who have sex with older men in order to earn money for essential items like sanitary napkins. It’s called “sex for pads,” and though it is hidden, it is common. A field officer for one NGO called Freedom for Girls in Nairobi reported that 50 percent of girls she encountered in the slum of Mathare had turned to prostitution to afford sanitary pads.57 When researchers surveyed 3,418 menstruating girls and women in rural western Kenya, one in ten of the fifteen-year-olds reported selling sex for sanitary
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