Menstrual Hygiene Day

Observed annually on 28 May (symbolizing the ~28-day average cycle and 5-day average period), this international day aims to break the silence and stigma surrounding menstruation, tackle period poverty, and ensure that all girls, women, and people who menstruate have access to clean, safe, and dignified menstrual hygiene management. It promotes education, infrastructure, and policy changes to make menstruation a normal part of life rather than a source of shame or barrier to education and participation.

Rather than a new theme each year, the movement (coordinated by WASH United since 2014) now unites behind this long-term mission: a world where menstruation is treated as a normal part of life rather than a source of stigma, shame or exclusion. It emphasizes that people who menstruate should have access to appropriate menstrual products, accurate information, supportive health services and safe, private, period-friendly sanitation facilities.

The emphasis is therefore broader than menstrual hygiene alone. It encompasses menstrual health, dignity, education, infrastructure, affordability, social attitudes and equal participation in everyday life. The 2026 campaign continued to call for collective action so that menstruation does not prevent anyone from participating fully in school, work or society.

• Normalize menstruation and challenge stigma and taboos
• Improve access to affordable, quality menstrual products
• Provide accurate, age-appropriate menstrual health education
• Ensure safe, private and period-friendly toilets and WASH facilities
• Improve access to menstrual health services
• Address period poverty and financial barriers
• Create supportive schools and workplaces
• Ensure menstruating people can participate fully in education, work and community life
• Include marginalized groups, including people with disabilities and displaced populations
• Involve men, boys, families, educators, employers and communities in normalizing menstruation
• Strengthen policies, investment and accountability around menstrual health and hygiene
• Promote dignity, choice and bodily autonomy

• Menstrual health
• Menstrual hygiene
• Menstruation
• Menstrual cycle
• Period
• Period poverty
• Menstrual products
• Sanitary pads
• Tampons
• Menstrual cups
• Period underwear
• Menstrual health education
• Menstrual stigma
• Menstrual taboos
• Menstrual dignity
• Menstrual health services
• WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene)
• Water sanitation and hygiene
• Period-friendly toilets
• Reproductive health
• Puberty
• Adolescent girls
• Menstrual pain
• Dysmenorrhea
• Abnormal menstrual bleeding
• Gender equity
• Hygiene management