A Kenyan senator is said to have been fired from parliament after attending a session in a white suit that had been stained red as part of a menstrual activism campaign.
On Wednesday, Gloria Orwoba of the ruling coalition is expected to table a motion on a bill to provide free sanitary pads as part of efforts to end period poverty.
Senators disrupted Tuesday’s afternoon session to draw the Speaker’s attention to Ms Orwoba’s “inappropriate dress code,” according to reports.
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.”
@Senator @gloria_orwoba , If we can have free toilet paper , Condoms Despenser in almost every toilet in the Kenya., we can also have free menstrual pads for all women.#FreeThePeriod
Pads Then Condoms pic.twitter.com/FRYjEkkd7A— Simon Dedan (@Simon_Dedan) February 14, 2023
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…”