Menstrual justice, Menstrual sovereignty and Menstrual Rights

More than 4 billion people menstruate, yet bleeding is still a taboo. Stigmatising this natural cycle of regeneration and interchange is a structural issue rooted in the Eurocentric conception of nature-culture divide, the patriarchal structures that shape our cultures and the post-colonial heritage that perpetuates inequality and monocultural precepts. Menstrual discrimination is intersectional and embedded in our sociocultural structures.

Dismantling the taboo of menstruation happens through knowledge and narrative-change processes. Understanding its physiology, knowing our rights, embodying the inner richness and wisdom that comes with the cyclicity of the period, opposing myths and stigmas, being critical in front of misleading information and resisting menstrual economies and markets, are firsts steps towards menstrual sovereignty and tangible justice.

We need narratives of regeneration and heterogeneity edified on interdependence and care for our bodies and territories, understanding that we are part of the ecosystems we inhabit: we belong to nature, we are nature, and we bleed nourishing the Earth in a reciprocal act of interchange. Coming together, creating a strong network of aware and informed population -committed to embracing our being nature, committed to dismantle discrimination and stigma- means building a cohesive community to positively impact menstrual justice.

Get to know your Menstrual Rights and the Laws and Conventions that regulate them:

1. Key International Human Rights Conventions
CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women): Often cited as the foundational framework, Article 12 requires states to eliminate discrimination in healthcare, which has been interpreted to include sexual and reproductive health and, by extension, menstrual management.
ICESCR (International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights):Article 12: The right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.
Article 11: The right to an adequate standard of living, including adequate water and sanitation (WASH).
CRC (Convention on the Rights of the Child): Committee recommendations often include «menstrual hygiene» as part of Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) and adolescent health. 

2. UN Treaty Body General Comments & Interpretations
CEDAW General Recommendation No. 24 (1999): Interprets health rights to include addressing biological factors like the menstrual cycle.
ICESCR General Comment No. 22 (2016): Mandates the elimination of stigma regarding menstruation.
ICESCR General Comment No. 23 (2016): Confirms that rights to work include access to sanitation facilities for menstrual management. 

3. Official Mandates and Resolutions
UN Human Rights Council Resolution (2024): Specifically addresses menstrual hygiene, health, and gender equality.
UNGA Resolution 64/292 (2010): Establishes the right to water and sanitation (WASH).
UNHCR/Bangkok Rules (2010): Requires free sanitary products in correctional facilities.
SDG 6.2: Aims for universal access to adequate sanitation and hygiene for women and girls. 
Those are knowledgeable legal steps for facing menstrual injustice. Yet our territories, our bodies, our periods are diverse and heterogeneous, shaped by different gender identities, beliefs and wisdom and conditioned by structural inequalities and intersectionality. Menstrual justice claims for inclusive, sovereign, informed, and feminist actions.

Advancing menstrual advocacy is an act of socio-environmental justice rooted at the core of our humanity.