Kimberly-Clark Highlights Global Efforts to Fight Period Stigma

Globally, more than 800 million women and girls are stigmatized, excluded and discriminated against simply because they menstruate. An additional 500 million lack access to basic period products and facilities needed for menstrual hygiene management.

As a result, these women and girls end up missing school and work, and they often become the target of gender-based violence due to misunderstanding and stigma.

“At Kimberly-Clark, we believe a period should never stand in the way of a woman’s progress – a belief that started with the founding of Kotex® more than 100 years ago and continues to this day,” said Alison Lewis, Chief Growth Officer for Kimberly-Clark.

Kimberly-Clark and its Kotex® brand are committed to challenging period perceptions and addressing stigmas around the world with women, men, girls and boys. Part of this commitment is the annual collaboration with WASH United to sponsor Menstrual Hygiene Day on Saturday, May 28, 2022, with a shared focus of making menstruation a normal fact of life by 2030.

“The WASH United partnership for Menstrual Hygiene Day is an ongoing and impactful campaign that Kimberly-Clark teams from around the world look forward to and rally behind,” said Juanita Pelaez, Vice President of Kimberly-Clark’s Global Adult and Feminine Care Brands.

To date, Kimberly-Clark, Kotex®, the Kimberly-Clark Foundation, and various non-profit collaborators have made tremendous strides to elevate menstrual health and hygiene around the world.

PROMOTING A GLOBAL CONVERSATION ABOUT PERIODS

Normalizing periods starts by promoting a global conversation around the need for education and the stigmas surrounding menstruation, and Kimberly-Clark’s brand teams are delivering against this objective in a variety of ways that directly engage consumers.

The company carried out actions in places such as Brazil, Taiwan and South Africa, through partnerships with Plan International, athletes, musicians and their trusted brands to demystify and bring awareness to period stigmas.

CHAMPIONING HER PROGRESS

Since its launch in 2020, the Kotex® She Can initiative has worked to champion women’s progress by fighting the barriers caused by period stigmas, promoting access to education in schools and communities, and by helping to open doors so women gain equal opportunity.

This year, the She Can initiative is launching a new partnership with Girl Up in Chile and Argentina. This partnership supports Girl Up’s work as a global leadership development initiative that positions girls to serve as leaders in the movement for gender equality.

Together, Girl Up and the Kimberly-Clark Foundation will provide leadership training and tools for participants to become gender equality advocates and activists for education around period poverty and period stigma. Through the partnership with Girl Up, Kimberly-Clark expects to positively impact more than 80,000 lives over the next three years.

MAKING A POSITIVE SOCIAL IMPACT THROUGH EDUCATION

Around the world, the Kotex® She Can initiative provides compelling educational resources that help girls, boys and parents understand period basics and abolish period stigma before it starts.

In 2021, the cumulative impact of Kimberly-Clark’s various social impact programs reached more than 8.7 million women, girls, men and boys, and focused on menstrual health management.

Included in last year’s social impact were eight projects supported by the Kimberly-Clark Foundation and Plan International that focused on creating a learning environment where women and girls have the confidence, knowledge, skills, materials and facilities necessary to overcome the persistent barriers to menstrual health education. These efforts led to a positive impact for over one million people in eight countries including Brazil, China, Colombia, Guatemala, India, Nigeria, Peru and Vietnam.

ADDRESSING ACCESS TO PRODUCTS AND SANITATION

Access to menstrual hygiene products, as well as period-friendly sanitation facilities, remain a significant challenge for millions of women and girls each day.

“It’s not enough to strive for awareness – we must fight for access to menstrual hygiene products if we have any chance of making a real impact for the countless women and girls in need of support,” said Mustafa Kudrati, Plan International USA President & CEO. “The COVID-19 pandemic was a temporary roadblock to our success, but I’m proud to say we worked together to pivot our approach and deliver the critical everyday necessities needed by women and girls – not just menstrual hygiene products, but soap, water and food as well.”

In fact, roughly one in three women in the U.S. struggles to afford period products. In response, Kimberly-Clark and its U by Kotex® brand became the founding sponsor of the Alliance for Period Supplies (APS) in 2018, and since then, they have donated more than 50 million period products through APS to women in need.

Additionally, one in five students in the U.S. struggle to afford period products, and report missing classes due to a lack of access to period products. This year, U by Kotex® provided additional funding to APS to administer a series of grants in the U.S. focused on advancing efforts in schools and benefitting school-aged girls. Recipients include Sisters on the Street for its work to provide free menstrual products in female and all-gender restrooms across its three existing partner high schools in Southern California, and Giving the Basics Wichita to advance its distribution efforts of period supply products to more than 51,000 people monthly and 130+ schools in Kansas.

To further address access to period products for students, Thinx, Inc. will donate 10,000 pairs of reusable period underwear for teens to APS. Thinx is the leader in the reusable period and incontinence underwear category, and Kimberly-Clark announced a majority investment in the company earlier this year.

“Period poverty is a solvable issue. By prioritizing menstrual equity, we’re recognizing that access to period products should no longer be a barrier to an education, and through this donation, we’re making a positive impact for thousands of young people who want to focus on school and activities that help them reach their full potential,” said Meghan Davis, Chief Executive Officer of Thinx, Inc.

Around the world, Kimberly-Clark’s brand teams are working at the local level to improve access to products. Across Australia and New Zealand, Kimberly-Clark has developed and distributed resource kits and Kotex® product samples to educate students about menstrual health. In Korea, Kimberly-Clark has donated more than one million menstrual health products to low-income women and girls since 2016.

EDUCATING MEN ABOUT PERIODS IS KEY TO UNLOCKING EQUITY

To unlock doors and build a better world for women and girls, Kimberly-Clark and its brands are working in innovative ways to build advocates among men to address period stigmas by educating men and boys about menstrual hygiene management.

A recent campaign in Vietnam, supported by the Kimberly-Clark Foundation in partnership with Plan International, reached more than 81,000 men through campaigns including the “Confident Puberty” initiative. Adolescents, fathers and community members were educated through a series of outreach programs to help promote education around menstrual health management, creating a stronger culture of acceptance for women and girls.

In India, the Kimberly-Clark Foundation supported educational activities led by Plan International that reached thousands of adolescents with menstruation information, and more than 30 percent of participants were male.

A unique partnership in Korea led the Kotex® brand to collaboration with the Korea Consumer Agency and the Korean Health Teachers Association on consumer education to move beyond teenage girls to educate their male peers and parents. This collaboration includes in-school programs as well as gift packages and educational materials to celebrate a girl’s first period.

NORMALIZING PERIODS BY 2030

In commemoration of Menstrual Hygiene Day, Kimberly-Clark is partnering with WASH United and encouraging employees, partners, consumers and customers to show support by wearing the annual Menstrual Hygiene Day Menstruation Bracelet that’s available via digital and social assets or printable paper versions.

The bracelet is made of 28 elements, with five of them red, representing the menstrual cycle.

“By wearing the Menstruation Bracelet or posting the digital and social assets, everyone can show that periods are nothing to hide and help push back taboos and stigma, one bracelet at a time,” said Thorsten Kiefer, Co-Founder and CEO of WASH United. “It’s time to normalize menstruation and by doing so help millions of women and girls to reach their full potential. Menstrual Hygiene Day and Kotex® are committed to ending period stigma. Are you with us?”