Menstrual Health Management in Protracted Crisis: Addressing Gender-Based Barriers to Education in Cameroon’s Anglophone Regions

by Antoinette Bohboh

Introduction

Nine years into the Anglophone crisis, the humanitarian community has extensively documented the displacement, trauma, and educational disruption affecting Northwest and Southwest Cameroon. Yet one critical dimension remains systematically underreported: the crisis of menstrual health management (MHM) among adolescent girls. Without access to sanitary materials, private sanitation facilities, or biological literacy, thousands of school-age girls are experiencing irreversible educational attrition.

Children’s Smile (CHS) presents a replicable, evidence-based intervention model that combines commodity distribution with comprehensive reproductive health education. To date, our volunteer-driven organization has provided essential menstrual hygiene supplies to 350 vulnerable girls and educated 570 youths on sexual and reproductive health. However, current capacity meets less than 5% of documented need. We invite strategic partnerships to scale this proven intervention and safeguard the educational trajectories of Cameroon’s most at-risk girls.

The Invisible Barrier: Menstrual Poverty in Conflict Contexts

Armed conflict exacerbates gender disparities through distinct, often overlooked mechanisms. In the Anglophone regions of Cameroon, where separatist militias and state forces have engaged in protracted hostilities since 2016, the erosion of protective infrastructure has precipitated a severe crisis in menstrual health management.

Displacement has proven particularly devastating. As families relocated from conflict zones to host communities in Bafoussam and surrounding areas, access to commercial sanitary products—already limited in rural markets—collapsed entirely. Economic destitution among displaced households has transformed menstrual supplies from household necessities to economically inaccessible commodities. Consequently, adolescent girls resort to unhygienic absorbent materials, risking reproductive tract infections while sacrificing educational attendance to avoid social stigma.

Compounding material deprivation is the destruction of privacy infrastructure. Communal displacement settings eliminate the discrete sanitation facilities essential for dignified menstrual management. Schools, traditionally critical access points for water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) resources, have faced targeted closures or operate at severely diminished capacity, removing a primary support system for menstruating students.

Systemic Stigma and the Knowledge Deficit

Beyond material scarcity, sociocultural barriers present equally formidable obstacles. Menstruation remains heavily stigmatized within the crisis-affected regions, characterized by profound silence and misinformation. CHS field assessments reveal that a significant proportion of girls in our intervention areas experience menarche without comprehension of the biological process, interpreting normal physiological events as pathology or divine punishment.

This knowledge vacuum carries severe educational consequences. Without anticipatory guidance on menstrual management, girls frequently miss 3-5 school days monthly—a cumulative deficit that precipitates permanent dropout in contexts already destabilized by conflict-related disruptions. The psychological burden of anticipated shame, combined with inadequate protective materials, creates a rational calculus of educational withdrawal that disproportionately affects female students.

Intervention Model: Integrating Commodity Provision with Education

Children’s Smile has developed a comprehensive, culturally adaptive response to menstrual poverty that addresses both immediate needs and systemic barriers:

1. Emergency Commodity Distribution

Through targeted outreach, CHS has distributed complete menstrual hygiene kits to 350 vulnerable girls. These kits go beyond basic pad provision to include essential ancillary items—antibacterial soap, towels, underwear, oral hygiene supplies, and footwear—recognising that menstrual dignity requires holistic hygiene. Distribution prioritizes double orphans, internally displaced persons (IDPs), and households with documented economic incapacitation.

2. Comprehensive Reproductive Health Education

Acknowledging that sustainable MHM requires knowledge capital, CHS has conducted sexual and reproductive health (SRH) education sessions reaching 570 youths. These interventions strategically utilize faith-based institutions and community schools as platforms, ensuring accessibility despite security constraints. Curricula address biological literacy, hygiene practices, and stigma reduction, with intentional inclusion of male peers to foster supportive social environments.

3. Psychosocial Integration

Recognizing the intersectionality of trauma and gender-based vulnerability, CHS provides trauma-healing sessions and counseling services to crisis-affected girls and their caregivers. This integrated approach acknowledges that menstrual health management cannot be separated from broader mental health recovery in protracted conflict settings.

Operational Efficiency and Local Capacity

CHS operates as a volunteer-driven organization with zero salaried administrative overhead. Our model leverages the expertise of young professionals—many of whom are crisis survivors—to conduct needs assessments, monitor beneficiaries, and implement programs. This lean operational structure ensures that donor contributions translate directly to programmatic impact rather than administrative expenditure.

Since 2024, we have begun diversifying our donor base to include international partners, recognising that localised resource mobilisation cannot meet the scale of regional need. Current organisational capacity allows us to reach approximately 500 additional girls annually; however, documented waitlists and community demand indicate the need for an immediate 500% expansion of the program.

Strategic Investment Opportunity

The evidence base for MHM interventions in conflict settings is robust: studies consistently show that menstrual support increases school attendance by 15-20% and significantly reduces dropout rates. For CHS, each $25 (13,846 frs CFA) hygiene kit represents not merely commodity provision but the preservation of a girl’s educational trajectory and future economic participation.

We seek strategic partnerships to:

– Expand kit distribution to 5,000 additional girls within 18 months.

– Establish fixed-point MHM resource centres in displacement-affected communities.

– Train 50 community health volunteers to sustain educational programming.

– Integrate menstrual health tracking into our existing education sponsorship database.

Conclusion

The Anglophone crisis has generated profound educational deficits that will constrain Cameroon’s human capital development for decades. While the international community appropriately prioritizes immediate security and food security concerns, failure to address menstrual health management risks permanent gender-based exclusion from post-conflict reconstruction. Children’s Smile offers a proven, scalable intervention that restores dignity, preserves educational access, and builds resilient community capacity. The cost of inaction—measured in truncated educational careers, early marriage, and economic marginalization—far exceeds the modest investment required for comprehensive MHM support.

We invite institutional donors, corporate partners, and individual philanthropists to join us in removing biological barriers to educational equity. The infrastructure we build today will determine whether this generation of Cameroonian girls participates in their nation’s future or remains marginalized by the physiological realities of their gender.

Note: To join us or designate contributions to our Menstrual Health Initiative, please get in touch with Children’s Smile through our coordinating office. Together, we can ensure that no girl sacrifices her education to biological processes beyond her control.

Thank you.