‘Period poverty’: Impregnated and infected with HIV at age 12 for want of sanitary pad

These are not warning signs. These are true accounts of girls and women who were victims of sexual exploitation and abuse as a result of what is now referred to be "period poverty."

When Afia was twelve years old, her mother became ill. She had to go to Techiman, where she was attending school, to live with her aunt.

She had her first period at school, something she was unaware of at the time. Boys in her class teased her when she soiled her outfit.

Afia was subjected to emotional abuse after returning home and telling her aunty about her experience. She also received little help, including no information about her menstrual cycle or access to sanitary napkins.

She returned to school and resorted to using toilet paper. 

During her second menstruation, she soiled her dress again. This time, a man in his 30s saw her in her state of distress and invited her home to wash down.




“I saw him as a father figure in the community and saw no harm in following him,” Afia told David Akuetteh on Luv in the Morning show.