Disturbing reports from cash-strapped Zimbabwe indicate that girls and women are resorting to using cow dung as sanitary pads as inflation “hits feminine hygiene products,” according to Africanews.
It’s a report that Richard Savo, head of programmes for Catholic Relief Services in Zimbabwe, said hits home.
“As someone with a young daughter and teenage family members, this makes me sad and angry,” Savo told Crux.
Zimbabwe has known economic hardship, but the war in Ukraine has pushed inflation to painful new levels, and it now stands at over 130 percent.
Savo said women and girls are paying a disproportionate price. In an interview with Crux, he examined the hard economic times for ordinary Zimbabweans, the dangers it has caused to female hygiene and what CRS has been doing to bring respite to desperate people.