Period Talk: Break Free From The Shame Ft. Bushra Mahnoor

This one is just me sitting down with Bushra Mahnoor, a period rights activist who built a grassroots movement from her hometown in Attock. We talk about the deep shame around periods, the reality of period poverty during Pakistan’s floods, and what it actually takes to talk about menstruation openly in a country that taxes pads as a luxury item.

I’ll be honest. Before this conversation, I hadn’t given much thought to how deeply reproductive health is ignored around me. I don’t see anybody actively working on it in my circle. Bushra changed that. She drove all the way from Attock to have this talk, and the moment she started sharing her childhood, I understood why she does what she does.

Growing up in a house of five sisters

Bushra is the middle child of five girls. She grew up watching her mother, a government school teacher, work relentlessly. Her mother was the single breadwinner, cooking breakfast, getting the girls ready for school, teaching her own classes, and then coming home to manage the household. All while extended family and neighbors felt free to comment that she had only given birth to daughters. What was she lacking?

That question stuck. “Am I not enough?” Bushra asks herself this in our talk. “Are my sisters not enough for the society?”

Then in seventh grade, a classmate told her the meaning of her name. Bushra means bearer of good news, but apparently people often name a daughter Bushra when they are actually hoping for a son. That moment hit her hard. She went home and talked to her mother. She realized she may have been an unwanted kid. That pain stayed, but it also became the fuel for her feminist cause.

The girl with blood stains during the floods

The pivot to period activism didn’t start in a classroom. It started in 2010. Bushra was at a relief camp in Khairabad village with her mother, distributing aid after devastating floods. She saw a little girl with big stains of blood on her shirt. Her mother approached the girl and found out she had gotten her first period right there, in the middle of the flood. The girl was scared, confused, and had absolutely nothing to manage her period with. Bushra’s mother gave her a shawl to cover herself, and that image never left Bushra.

When news of the 2022 floods broke, the first picture in her mind was that same little girl from twelve years earlier. She couldn’t stop thinking about thousands of other girls going through the same thing. So she started talking to friends. They created a platform called Mahwari Justice. They tweeted, made videos, and began fundraising for period relief kits.

The backlash started immediately. People told them that with people dying and no food or shelter, worrying about periods was a luxury. “A lot of people in our country think that period products are a luxury,” Bushra tells me. “The percentage of tax that is imposed on a packet of pads is exactly the same as the percentage of tax that is imposed on luxury handbags.” Our state sends that message, so it is no wonder people repeat it.

What period poverty actually looks like on ground

Bushra’s stories from the field are hard to shake off. In Balochistan, she met women managing their periods with dry leaves. Several used mud. She met a mother of five daughters who told her, “Baji hum apna sar cover karein ya phir un dupattas se” (sister, should I cover my head or use that cloth for periods). A woman should never have to choose between covering her head and managing her period with the same piece of cloth.

Then there is Amala. Bushra gave period kits to this woman who had lost her home in the floods. Amala was wearing a torn chadar. Her daughter was barefoot. The only thing that had survived the flood were Amala’s glass bangles. When Bushra handed her the kits, Amala took off those bangles and gave them to her. The only possession she had left. “At that moment I could not say anything,” Bushra tells me. “That was a feeling of immense gratitude.”

We think people who have been through so much would feel entitled to any help they receive. Instead, this woman thought she owed Bushra something. That is what gives Bushra hope. The people she works for, their response, their grace. It is what keeps her going.

Learning to listen instead of imposing

One thing Mahwari Justice learned early on was that solutions have to come from the community. They distributed pads at first, only to hear from women in certain villages of Sindh that they don’t usually wear panties. They wanted drawstrings and long sheets of cloth because that is how they normally manage their periods. The team changed their approach immediately. Comfort matters. It is the only thing they prioritize.

They also made sure distribution happened with dignity. In places where relief work is mostly carried out by men, period relief kits were packed inside ration bags so women could receive them discreetly. No men around during distribution. “We do not want to make the people who are already suffering suffer more,” Bushra explains. If it is not done sensitively, it can create bigger resistance.

Rap songs, games, and a comic book

Now that the immediate flood waters have receded, Mahwari Justice is building for the long term. They are writing rap songs in Sindhi and Balochi about periods. They play simple, fun period games with children in post-flood areas where schools were destroyed. Bushra recently finished writing a comic book on period education featuring fairies and monsters to keep kids engaged. It comes out next month and will be available in Sindhi and Urdu.

Why this creative approach? Because you cannot go the conventional educational route with a topic this taboo. People get offended. So they choose light hearted conversations, anthems, and games to open up the dialogue. Slow and steady.

Their first policy goal is clear: remove the luxury tax on period products. “We can not go on like that,” Bushra says. Growing up in a family of five sisters, she knows firsthand what it feels like to make one pad last 24 hours because supplies were not enough. It was expensive then, and it is still expensive now.

The hardest conversations are at home

I asked Bushra if she had the support she wanted from her own family. She didn’t, initially. Her family was against her talking about periods openly. Coming from a small town, her mother was uncomfortable and deeply cautious. She warned Bushra that this work could affect her sisters’ rishta prospects. “If you keep on doing so, they won’t be able to get good rishta,” her mother told her.

Bushra had to sit with her family. She had to have the uncomfortable conversation. She says it is much easier to convince the entire outer world about the necessity of period justice than to navigate your own home. She showed real bravery there. A lot of people cannot talk to their families and just let their dreams die instead.

Bushra didn’t let that happen. She keeps showing up, running a campaign alongside a full time job, family, and friends. Mahwari Justice is not a big organization. It is a group of mostly female volunteers who believe in relationship building and sisterhood. As she tells me, anyone can join simply by talking about periods. In a country that shames menstruation, even writing about it on social media can be an act of resistance.

That is my takeaway from this conversation. Talk about periods. Say the word out loud. Because when we hush up a topic, we ignore the people suffering from lack of education and lack of resources. Bushra saw a little girl in 2010 and carried her image for twelve years. Now she is building a movement that reaches thousands of menstruators with dignity and care. We can all do a small part in breaking the silence.