Nepal-Led Coalition Seeks UN Endorsement for Dignified Menstruation Day
From the Editor’s Desk
July 16, 2026
An international advocacy network is pressing the United Nations to formally endorse December 8 as International Dignified Menstruation Day, an observance it has held for seven years without official recognition from the world body.
The Global South Coalition for Dignified Menstruation, or GSCDM, a network of campaigners working on menstrual rights, has been lobbying the United Nations to adopt the date, Nepal-based activist Radha Paudel told Newsreel Asia.
Since 2019 the coalition, backed by her Radha Paudel Foundation, a non-governmental organization headquartered in Nepal, has campaigned online and in person, alongside Nepal’s government, Paudel said, adding that December 8, 2026 will mark the eighth observance.
Paudel, a nurse and author, calls herself a survivor of menstrual discrimination.
Paudel’s argument is that the discrimination begins the hierarchy rather than expressing one already in place. “Menstruators” come to see themselves as inferior, powerless and vulnerable, she has said, while “non-menstruators” see themselves as superior, powerful and in control, and that division then reinforces patriarchy and unequal power relations.
She says what starts with menstrual discrimination ends with inequality, patriarchy and sexual and gender-based violence, or SGBV. Menstruation, she argues, is not a matter of pads and their distribution, and that the practices surrounding it institutionalise the power dynamic that governs women’s position in the household and outside it.
About the date International Dignified Menstruation Day is observed, she said December 8 is the 14th day of the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence, an annual worldwide campaign. It is also two days before Human Rights Day on December 10, in a month widely marked as Human Rights Month.
Menstrual discrimination covers silence, taboo, stigma, shyness, restriction, abuse, violence, exclusion and the withholding of services tied to menstruation. The coalition says such practices breach at least four rights, dignity, equality, freedom and non-discrimination. It cites hiding menstrual pads and preventing participation in cultural activities as examples. None of that is covered by the observance the world already has.
May 28 has been marked since 2014, when the German non-governmental organisation WASH United began it, with a focus on products, sanitation and menstrual management. Many organisations now call it Menstrual Health Day rather than Menstrual Hygiene Day, over concerns that the word hygiene may reinforce perceptions of menstrual blood as impure or dirty.
The coalition argues that no existing international observance does two things at once, addressing every form of menstrual discrimination throughout the year, and naming that discrimination as both SGBV and a human rights violation within the 16 Days of Activism framework.
Gender Equality and Social Inclusion frameworks, or GESI, the policy instruments governments and agencies use to address exclusion, fall short in the same way, the coalition says. From the United Nations to local governments, those frameworks have not addressed menstrual discrimination in full. Some recent policies include menstrual health or menstrual hygiene without going wider.
Nepal’s government endorsed the concept in 2017 through a National Policy on Dignified Menstruation, and a menstrual law followed the same year. A resolution motion on Dignified Menstruation was passed in 2025. However, significant challenges remain, the coalition says.
More than 95 member organisations are affiliated with the coalition. Its steering committee has members from Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Indonesia, the Philippines, Uganda, Malawi and South Africa. Books, policy papers, appeals and petitions addressed to the United Nations are posted on its website.
The campaign says menstruators and non-menstruators both have a role in ending discrimination, and it invites governments, schools, workplaces, media and youth groups to join the December observance.
Dignified Menstruation has also entered academic reference work, Paudel said. The SAGE Encyclopedia of Menstruation and Society, published in 2026, carries a chapter on the subject authored by Paudel, Samiksha Koirala and Mili Adhikari.
You have just read a News Briefing, written by Newsreel Asia’s text editor, Vishal Arora, to cut through the noise and present a single story for the day that matters to you. We encourage you to read the News Briefing each day. Our objective is to help you become not just an informed citizen, but an engaged and responsible one.
