{"id":184099,"date":"2025-08-25T11:39:17","date_gmt":"2025-08-25T11:39:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.premium-partners.net\/?p=184099"},"modified":"2025-08-29T12:08:51","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T12:08:51","slug":"period-poverty-on-the-south-african-frontlines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.premium-partners.net\/fr\/builder\/period-poverty-on-the-south-african-frontlines\/","title":{"rendered":"Period poverty on the South African frontlines"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post<\/a> was originally published on this site<\/a><\/p>

<\/p>\n

Women make up some 52% of <\/span>South Africa<\/span>\u2019s labour force, according to <\/span>Statista data. Our workplaces, however, aren\u2019t equally geared to meet women\u2019s needs. For millions of women in <\/span>frontline<\/span>, or deskless roles, the workplace presents challenges our male colleagues will never endure.<\/p>\n

Take menstruation. Around 22 million <\/span>South Africans<\/span> <\/span>menstruate every month. Around 4 million experience <\/span>period<\/span> <\/span>poverty<\/span> <\/span>– an inability to access safe, hygienic menstrual products, facilities and education to manage periods with safety and dignity.<\/p>\n

This is particularly acute for <\/span>frontline<\/span> <\/span>workers who may work on construction sites, on farms, in factories, as cleaners, security guards or in other facilities where they cannot easily access secure bathrooms with soap and running water, if at all.<\/p>\n

A woman who is worried her <\/span>period<\/span> <\/span>flow is going to leak through her uniform is not fully focussing on her work. Menstrual symptoms like severe cramps, headaches, and nausea pose genuine threats to worker health. This is especially true for those working in extreme temperatures or doing physical labour.<\/p>\n

If symptoms become overwhelming and or their supplies run out, these women stay home, missing out on income they desperately need. For low wage workers earning R6,000 to R10,000 a month, a single day\u2019s pay makes a difference to being able to pay for food or transport or school fees.<\/p>\n

Taking emergency leave because they don\u2019t have tampons or pads, or because their physical symptoms incapacitate them places a strain on women\u2019s working relationships, particularly if these are repeated absences. This impacts their performance reviews and promotional opportunities. Jem\u2019s 2025 Deskless Worker Pulse preliminary findings indicate that men are more confident about promotion (45.4% \u201cvery possible\u201d) than women (38.5%), with 31.5% of women believing they\u2019re unlikely to advance (vs. 21.5% of men). While there is more to unpack here, it is telling data at first glance.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s the <\/span>ongoing stigma <\/span>around menstruation, which is seen as dirty or shameful. Social pressure is high for women to just manage these things quietly without making a fuss. This makes it harder for women to speak out, even to each other, to ask for help, let alone ask managers or employers for adequate facilities to manage periods in the workplace and regular breaks to manage <\/span>period<\/span> <\/span>symptoms. This extracts a physical and emotional toll, month in and month out.<\/p>\n

Employers can help by ensuring that they provide adequately equipped facilities that have water, soap and disposal bins, and that lock. Install dispensers for tampons and pads so that women always have access to what they need, even if their funds run out. This will reduce emergency leave requests and <\/span>reduce costly workplace mistakes. Finally, ensure that all managers are trained to sensitively tackle conversations around something that is often a cultural taboo.<\/p>\n

Denying women the basic infrastructure we need to manage a fundamental aspect of our biology implicitly devalues us as humans and erodes our confidence and dignity, daily. Employers can help their people thrive and reach their full potential by being sensitive to this and ensuring all of their people\u2019s needs are sensitively and adequately accommodated. They will be rewarded by more productive people, lower employee turnover, and a happier workforce.<\/p>\n

Caroline van der Merwe, co-founder and Chief Product Officer at Jem. <\/i><\/p>\n

Caroline van der Merwe, co-founder and Chief Product Officer at Jem. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

BUSINESS REPORT <\/strong><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Women make up some 52% of\u00a0South Africa\u2019s labour force, according to\u00a0Statista data. Our workplaces, however, aren\u2019t equally geared to meet women\u2019s needs. For millions of women in\u00a0frontline, or deskless roles, the workplace presents challenges our male colleagues will never endure.Take menstruation. Around 22 million\u00a0South Africans\u00a0menstruate every month. Around 4 million experience\u00a0period\u00a0poverty\u00a0– an inability to access safe, hygienic menstrual products, facilities and education to manage periods with safety and dignity.This is particularly acute for\u00a0frontline\u00a0workers who may work on construction sites, on farms, in factories, as cleaners, security guards or in other facilities where they cannot easily access secure bathrooms with soap and running water, if at all.A woman who is worried her\u00a0period\u00a0flow is going to leak through her uniform is not fully focussing on her work. Menstrual symptoms like severe cramps, headaches, and nausea pose genuine threats to worker health. This is especially true for those working in extreme temperatures or doing physical labour.If symptoms become overwhelming and or their supplies run out, these women stay home, missing out on income they desperately need. For low wage workers earning R6,000 to R10,000 a month, a single day\u2019s pay makes a difference to being able to pay for food or transport or school fees.Taking emergency leave because they don\u2019t have tampons or pads, or because their physical symptoms incapacitate them places a strain on women\u2019s working relationships, particularly if these are repeated absences. This impacts their performance reviews and promotional opportunities. Jem\u2019s 2025 Deskless Worker Pulse preliminary findings indicate that men are more confident about promotion (45.4% \u201cvery possible\u201d) than women (38.5%), with 31.5% of women believing they\u2019re unlikely to advance (vs. 21.5% of men). While there is more to unpack here, it is telling data at first glance.Then there\u2019s the\u00a0ongoing stigma\u00a0around menstruation, which is seen as dirty or shameful. Social pressure is high for women to just manage these things quietly without making a fuss. This makes it harder for women to speak out, even to each other, to ask for help, let alone ask managers or employers for adequate facilities to manage periods in the workplace and regular breaks to manage\u00a0period\u00a0symptoms. This extracts a physical and emotional toll, month in and month out.Employers can help by ensuring that they provide adequately equipped facilities that have water, soap and disposal bins, and that lock. Install dispensers for tampons and pads so that women always have access to what they need, even if their funds run out. This will reduce emergency leave requests and\u00a0reduce costly workplace mistakes. Finally, ensure that all managers are trained to sensitively tackle conversations around something that is often a cultural taboo.Denying women the basic infrastructure we need to manage a fundamental aspect of our biology implicitly devalues us as humans and erodes our confidence and dignity, daily. Employers can help their people thrive and reach their full potential by being sensitive to this and ensuring all of their people\u2019s needs are sensitively and adequately accommodated. They will be rewarded by more productive people, lower employee turnover, and a happier workforce.Caroline van der Merwe, co-founder and Chief Product Officer at Jem.\u00a0Caroline van der Merwe, co-founder and Chief Product Officer at Jem.\u00a0BUSINESS REPORT\u00a0<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":184101,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-184099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-builder"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.premium-partners.net\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.premium-partners.net\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.premium-partners.net\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.premium-partners.net\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.premium-partners.net\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184099"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.premium-partners.net\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184099\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":184102,"href":"https:\/\/www.premium-partners.net\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184099\/revisions\/184102"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.premium-partners.net\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/184101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.premium-partners.net\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.premium-partners.net\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.premium-partners.net\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}