Miss World 2017 Manushi Chhillar On Menstrual Health

Manushi Chhillar became an advocate for menstrual health after seeing someone close to her suffer.

Transcript

00:00And ultimately when she could not finally have a child,

00:03she blamed herself for it and went into depression.

00:07That's when I realized that this has such a huge impact

00:12on lives around the world.

00:14When I was 18, I learned something about

00:30the domestic help who used to stay with us at home.

00:33So my domestic help had problem conceiving a child.

00:38And as she would discuss it with my mother,

00:42we ran a few tests, she visited many doctors

00:45and it came out that she had fibrous tissue in her uterus.

00:52And when we tried to explain it to her why,

00:56my parents realized that she might have had an infection

01:00during her childhood, maybe during her puberty,

01:04due to which the fibrous tissue was formed

01:06and the most probable cause of infection

01:08was poor menstrual hygiene because she's never used

01:10a sanitary pad in her entire life.

01:13And that was the only fact that she could not conceive

01:18a child made her to marry thrice.

01:21And ultimately when she could not finally have a child,

01:24she blamed herself for it and went into depression.

01:28That's when I realized that this has such a huge impact

01:33on lives around the world.

01:34I came to know that it was not just the lack of awareness.

01:50People knew what they had to do when they were menstruating,

01:53but they didn't have the provision to practice it.

01:57They didn't have any shops nearby in their villages

02:01where they could buy sanitary pads.

02:03They would run out of generic pads

02:04due to which they had to buy the expensive ones.