Nokuzola Ndwandwe, a Unisa Accounting Sciences graduate from KwaZulu-Natal, who is also an award-winning menstrual health rights activist, made her first physical presentation on her petition in the South African parliament in Cape Town on 13 November 2024. She did so to present her petition #FreeSanitaryPads calling for menstrual rights to be recognised as a human right in this country.

Nokuzola Ndwandwe and Dr Mimmy Gondwe, Deputy Minister of Higher Education and Training

Ndwandwe is a #TeamFreeSanitaryPads campaigner, who grew up in the village of Hlabisa in KwaZulu-Natal, which lies between the Hluhluwe and Umfolozi game reserves, some 40 km north-west of Mtubatuba. Her campaign for free sanitary pads to eradicate what she calls "period poverty" started in 2014, following a harrowing incident in which she experienced severe abdominal pain while working at a vacation job. She was admitted to hospital, where she was diagnosed with endometriosis, a painful disease in which tissue similar to the lining of the uterus grows outside the uterus and causes severe pain, heavy menstrual periods, or bleeding between periods, and also makes it harder to fall pregnant.

She refers to this incident of having a heavy, painful menstrual period in a male-dominated work environment as the "most shameful and embarrassing" experience of her life. It led her to think about other young girls, specifically those in rural areas who are forced to miss school because they cannot afford to buy sanitary pads and also often experience scarcity of clean water.

Ndwandwe started the Menstrual Health Campaign, in terms of which she and other #TeamFreeSanitaryPads members called on the South African government to provide free sanitary products to dignify young women and girls across the country. Her first physical presentation regarding her petition was heard by the Parliamentary Joint Portfolio Committee together with the Department of Basic Education and the Department of Higher Education and Training.

Prior to this meeting, she had received many invitations to address other organisations on the significant work she is undertaking in South Africa. For example, in 2023, she received an invitation from the United Nations Assembly through the United Nations Women’s Guild. She also received an invitation from South Africa’s Portfolio Committee on Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities to attend its first sitting on 29 October 2024. On this occasion, she gave a virtual presentation and took the opportunity to call for investigation into the causes of failed attempts to provide menstrual products universally through the Sanitary Dignity Programme in South Africa. The National Assembly Speaker, Thoko Didiza, subsequently mandated all the ministers of parliament, as well as all the government departments, to heed the petition.

Having already made a significant contribution to driving gender-centred policy, both nationally and internationally, Ndwandwe intends to expand her influence by hosting more menstrual health rights workshops, which will involve distributing free menstrual health products at schools and in public areas. She also plans to promote job creation through the manufacturing of quality organic menstrual products, thus promoting South African brands and persuading South Africans that locally produced goods are of a superior quality.

She currently works at Unisa in KwaZulu-Natal as a finance and operations intern, and she intends to pursue her accounting studies – as an aspiring chartered accountant – at this university next year. She wants to specialise in auditing so that she can hold those in power accountable for funds designated to improve the lives of the most vulnerable in society, including women, which is in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Ndwandwe believes that no young woman should be forced to choose between buying bread and buying sanitary pads to manage what is a natural biological process, so she declares that "the struggle continues". Unisa is proud to have such an inspirational young woman as a student and intern.

* By Amanda Mthengi, Communication and Marketing Intern, Deputy Registrar: Student Affairs and Regional Services, with input from Nokuzola Ndwandwe, Finance and Operations Intern. ChatGPT was utilised in creating this article