Kenya: senator kicked out of parliament over alleged period stain
Gloria Orwoba, a Kenyan senator is reported to have been kicked out of parliament after attending a session while wearing a white suit stained in red and which looked like her menstrual flow.
This was during their session on Tuesday, February 14th.
She admitted she had noticed the stain before entering the building but since she is a no-period shame advocate she decided to go in stained in red.
“Since I am always advocating against period shame, I thought I should go ahead and walk the talk,” she said.
Their session was said to be disrupted with the other senators drawing the Speaker’s attention to Ms. Orwoba’s “inappropriate dress code”.
One of the house speakers, Amason Kingi reportedly ordered the Senator to go change her clothes before she could be readmitted to the chambers.
“Having periods is never a crime… Senator Gloria, I sympathize 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 reported.
She however protested saying: “I am shocked that someone can stand here and say that the House has been disgraced because a woman has had her period.”
Speaking to the press 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…”
She says her experience has made her understand the discrimination faced by some girls in Kenya when they are on their period.
“We have a girl who killed herself because of the same issue that I’m going through and now I understand because it is the women who are trying to make this a crime.”
She advocates for an increase in government funding for free sanitary pads and the provision of female hygiene products in all public schools and says the funding would help address period poverty.
