A Kenyan senator is standing upagainst period shame.
Gloria Orwoba wore a white suit stained with blood to parliament last month to fight the stigma surrounding menstruation affecting Kenyan women and girls.
Orwoba told theBBCof her decision to attend parliament, “When I got off the car, a senate staff ran towards me to cover me and begged me to go back inside the car. Since I am always advocating against period shame, I thought I should go ahead and walk the talk.”
Never miss a story — sign up forPEOPLE’s free daily newsletterto stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Gloria Orwoba at Mkuru Community Center primary school on Tuesday.Brian Inganga/AP/Shutterstock
According to the BBC, female senator Tabitha Mutinda asked the senate speaker Amason Kingi to rule on whether Orwoba had adhered to the parliament’s dress code and called her appearance “indecent.” “You don’t understand if she’s on the normal woman cycle or she’s faking it, and it is so indecent,” she said. According to the BBC, Mutinda added that Orwoba was not setting a good example to women and young girls.
Kingi ruled that Orowba should leave parliament according to the BBC, whileAPreported that Orwoba walked out.
Kenyan senator Gloria Orwoba.Brian Inganga/AP/Shutterstock
“Having periods is never a crime,” he said, per the BBC. “Sen 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.”
After leaving the senate building, Orwoba is reported to have stayed in her same clothes and spoken to the media, before visiting a primary school in the capital, where she distributed sanitary towels.
On Tuesday, Orwoba, who is campaigning for free sanitary products for girls and women, was pictured handing out sanitary pads to girls at a primary school in Nairobi wearing a fuchsia pantsuit.
Orwoba toldAPthat the incident had encouraged her to concentrate on drafting a bill calling on the Kenyan government to provide an annual supply of sanitary pads to all schoolgirls and women in prison. “For legislators to feel the urgency of legislating things into law, they must be subjected to the advocacy and the noise,” she said.
source: people.com
