By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Kenyan parliament on Wednesday barred a female Senator, Gloria Orwoba from taking part in the day’s sitting for appearing in a white suit stained red in an apparent menstrual activism campaign.
Orwoba of the ruling coalition was due to present a motion on a bill to provide free sanitary pads on Wednesday as part of efforts to end period poverty among young girls in the country.
Reports say parliamentarians disrupted the day’s business while drawing the Speaker’s attention to Ms Orwoba’s “inappropriate dress code”.
In protest, the Senator said: “I am shocked that someone can stand here and say that the House has been disgraced because a woman has had her periods.”
The Speaker, Amason Kingi ordered Sen. Orwoba to go change her clothes before she could be readmitted to the chambers.
“Having periods is never a crime… Senator Gloria, I sympathise with you that you are going through the natural act of menstruation, you have stained your wonderful suit, I’m asking you to leave so that you go change and come back with clothes that are not stained,” the BBC quoted speaker in a report
Outside the chambers, Senator Orwoba confirmed the report to journalists saying “unfortunately I have been kicked out because I’m on my period and we are not supposed to show our period when we are on our period and that is the kind of period stigma girls and women are having outside…”
