Adolescent girls at Kuajok Girls' Primary School in Warrap State say they lack sanitary towels which makes them face challenges during learning.
Many adolescent girls in South Sudan drop out and fail to complete their educations because they do not have access to sanitary pads.
Abuk Mangok, a primary 7 pupil at the school, said: “We need face masks because we sit near each other in the class and another challenge is that we don't have some things like Always (sanitary pads) that can help us during our classes.”
She added, “Yes, it can stop us from understanding lessons. When this thing (monthly periods) comes and the teacher is in the class, then you may not be comfortable.”
Athieng Mawien, an 18-year-old pupil in Primary 6 also said sanitary pads make them feel comfortable during their lessons. She says they got sanitary pads sometime back from a certain organization and it helped them a lot.
"We help ourselves using sanitary pads and without them, we are not able to stay in class during our menstrual cycle unless it is provided so that we stay comfortably," she said.
The Headteacher of Kuajok Girls' Primary school, Adior Salvatore Athian, said Tuesday that feminine hygiene and sanitation in the school has been a challenge since the reopening of schools.
She said female pupils in her school lack menstrual hygiene materials although the Red Cross distributed a few sanitary pads to 113 adolescent girls last year which were not sufficient.
"Yes, it’s called Always (pads). There are two types of them and the durable one is the one the girls can wash and dry. It is a good one and it lasts for one year so we need the Red Cross to increase the number of pads because the state is big since they are combined (Twic and Tonj) to be Warrap State," she said.
According to Adior, the enrolment of girls has increased and within a month, since the reopening of schools this year, they have registered 420 students compared to last year when the school had a total of 418 students.
She called on the Red Cross and other organizations to continue providing sanitary pads to 77 girls who recently joined the school from the defunct Twic and Tonj states.
"I urge the organization which distributed female essential materials last year at the school to continue maintaining the girls in school because this is the only factor stopping girls from going to schools,” Adior said. “Poor families who cannot afford their daughters’ essential needs make the learning of girls difficult and girls might decide to get married at a younger age because of the compelling situation.”
The Deputy Headteacher of Kuajok Girl’s Primary School, Job Toch Akech, said, the sanitary facilities at the school are abused by people who reside near the school after school hours.
‘’The issue of toilets, even if we clean them, they misuse them after us in the evening. The community around the school and people who pass by do not properly know how to use the toilets. Instead, they drop it on the floor and leave the holes. We will buy padlocks in the shortest time possible to avoid this,” he said.