[Watch/Read] Meet India's Menstruation Man, Who Started A Sanitary Napkin Revolution

In a world where millions of women can’t afford safe menstrual hygiene, one man goes on a quest to make the perfect sanitary pad. His neighbours called him a pervert and his wife left him, but he never gave up. He is India’s Menstruation Man.

What is the 100 percent sanitary pad movement?

Arunachalam Muruganantham, the first man who wore a sanitary napkin is also the inventor of low-cost sanitary pad making machine that has empowered the lives of the rural women who cannot afford the expensive sanitary napkins available in the market. It has been his primal mission to make sanitary pads accessible to the rural villages where women even in the 21st century use dirty rags, the unhygienic sand, sawdust, leaves and even ash to address their monthly cycles. These objects are not disinfected, and result in poor menstrual hygiene leading to serious cases of maternal mortality.

What has Arunachalam done?

Arunachalam as a driven ‘solution provider’ has rectified this glaring problem by inventing a set of mini machines which can manufacture 120 napkins per hour and have been have been launched across India.

How are Arunachalam’s machines different?

These user friendly machines have succeeded in manufacturing these goods at an affordable rate and have also provided jobs to the rural women. The major corporations use high-tech machines to manufacture pads and cost upto more than 3 crores. Muruganantham’s invention, on the other hand, is reasonable in its pricing and is very convenient to install and to operate. The machines use processed pine wood and mills, de-fibrates, presses and fumigates the napkins before wrapping them for use. Indeed with the birth of this invention, we have taken a step forward in ensuring the health and comfort of the rural women in India.