From draft to dignity: Why menstrual health in India still needs a ‘Legal Guarantee’

The first mistake in talking about menstruation in India is to treat it as a private inconvenience. The second is to reduce it to access to menstrual products. Menstruation sits at the intersection of health, dignity, education, work, sanitation, gender equality and poverty. Yet our laws have largely approached these questions through scattered schemes, rather than as one enforceable right.

India’s draft National Menstrual Hygiene Policy, formulated after inter-ministerial consultation, was approved in November 2024 as the Menstrual Hygiene Policy for School-Going Girls. It seeks safe and affordable products, gender-responsive sanitation, safe waste disposal, education and stigma reduction. Meanwhile,  Karnataka has proposed the Karnataka Menstrual Leave and Hygiene Bill, 2025, following a State policy granting one paid day of menstrual leave each month to eligible women workers.

The shift from “welfare” to “rights” became sharper in January 2026, when in Dr. Jaya Thakur v. Government of India, the Supreme Court recognised dignified menstrual health as inseparable from the right to life under Article 21 and issued detailed directions for schools, including functional gender-segregated toilets, free oxo-biodegradable sanitary napkins, menstrual hygiene management corners, safe disposal mechanisms and menstrual-health education. The Court’s later compliance proceedings make the message unmistakable: recognition on paper is not enough.

Who does this policy work for?

NFHS-5 found that 77.3% of women aged 15–24 used a hygienic method of menstrual protection. Yet the figure was 95% among women in the highest wealth quintile and only 54% among those in the lowest. Rural women also lagged behind urban women: 73% compared with 90%. 

Studies have shown that that Indian women in the lower-income group were significantly more likely to report irregular menstrual cycles. At the same time, income did not significantly change participants’ perceived ability to manage pain. This suggests that, poverty makes menstruation harder to navigate, with greater financial insecurity, fewer resources, and less control over the conditions in which it is experienced. The study also found that as stress increased, pain-management efficacy tended to fall. The study’s findings raise an important policy question: can menstrual justice truly be achieved through product distribution alone, when the conditions in which menstruation is experienced remain unequal? 

Numbers can only indicate that inequality exists; meanwhile, lived experiences speak to us how inequality feels like. A period managed with privacy, clean water, reliable products and the possibility of resting is a very different bodily reality from one managed through calculations about access.

The law remains fragmented. Constitutional guarantees under Articles 14, 15(3), 21 and 21A, alongside the National Health Mission’s schemes and education frameworks, provide a foundation for menstrual health justice. However, scattered policies and schemes make it difficult to identify and enforce statutory entitlements. A comprehensive framework should translate these constitutional principles into identifiable duties, standards, funding and remedies. 

This is also why menstrual leave cannot be the endpoint of the legal conversation. In March 2026, the Supreme Court declined to entertain a PIL seeking a nationwide menstrual-leave regime, cautioning that a blanket framework could unintentionally reinforce gender stereotypes, while allowing the competent authority to consider the issue after consulting stakeholders. Karnataka, however, has moved in the opposite direction: its High Court subsequently directed strict implementation of the State’s menstrual-leave policy, including attention to the unorganised sector, pending enactment of the proposed Bill.

The contrast is instructive. India does not simply need “menstrual leave”; it needs a broader menstrual justice framework. A rights-based law should address products, water and sanitation, school attendance, workplace accommodation, health information, privacy, waste management and grievance redressal, while designing different mechanisms for different realities. Know your options: Navigating menstrual health at work

If you are an employee seeking menstrual leave or workplace accommodation, the starting point is the HR policy, employment contract or service rules of their workplace. Where there is a separate menstrual-leave provision, you can invoke it; if not, you can explore the leave categories already available under the applicable rules, such as sick, casual or earned leave.

 You can also write to your HR department or management and formally request the adoption of a menstrual-leave policy

If your concerns remain unresolved, you can use the existing grievance architecture:

The Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 also provides a broader foundation through its requirements concerning workplace cleanliness, drinking water and hygienic sanitation facilities. Water, sanitation, privacy and hygiene are the infrastructure of menstrual dignity. A workplace may not have a separate “menstrual room”, but a worker should not have to choose between managing her period safely and managing her workday. The OSH Code therefore offers an existing legal framework on which a more explicit menstrual-health framework can be built, or could be built upon.

A menstrual-health right becomes meaningful not only when the law recognises it, but when a woman can ask for it, have it institutionalised in her workplace, and know where to turn when it is ignored.

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Izeen Fatima is a lawyer who graduated from Campus Law Centre, Faculty of Law, University of Delhi, in 2026. She currently works as a Human Rights Panel Lawyer with the Lingering Shadows Initiative, and she is the Chairperson of Pink Legal Ibtida.