A Kenyan senator is reported to have been sacked from parliament after attending a session while wearing a white suit stained red in an apparent menstrual activism campaign.
Gloria Orwoba, of the ruling coalition, is due to table a motion on a bill to provide free sanitary pads on Wednesday as part of efforts to end period poverty.
According to reports, senators disrupted Tuesday’s afternoon session to draw the Speaker’s attention to Ms Orwoba’s “inappropriate dress code”.
But the senator protested saying: “I am shocked that someone can stand here and say that the House has been disgraced because a woman has had her periods.”
Speaker Amason Kingi ordered the senator to go change her clothes before she could be readmitted to the chambers.
“Having periods is never a crime… Senator Gloria, I sympathise 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,” the BBC quoted speaker in a report
Outside the chambers, Senator Orwoba confirmed the report to journalists saying “unfortunately I have been kicked out because I’m on my period and we are not supposed to show our period when we are on our period and that is the kind of period stigma girls and women are having outside…”
In other news – Mother of stabbed form 4 student speaks about son’s death
The mother of Wayne Ndlovu, a Form Four student at Founders High School, who was stabbed to death on Monday afternoon in a suspected turf war involving boys from Hamilton High School has said she is devastated by the incident.
The student was stabbed in the neck resulting in blood loss. He was pronounced dead upon arrival at the United Bulawayo Hospitals (UBH).Learn More
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