Personal Narrative: Bloody Precarious Activism in Uganda

Abstract

In her essay, Stella Nyanzi describes and analyzes her dissident activism against the president’s unfulfilled promise of providing sanitary pads to schoolgirls in resource-poor communities in Uganda. Named #Pads4GirlsUg, the campaign enabled local and global citizens to contribute toward the distribution of menstrual products and provide critical menstrual health education. Stella Nyanzi powerfully examines the strategies she used for popularizing the campaign, mobilizing citizen participation, and smashing the silence and taboo around menstruation. Above all, she dissects the countertactics employed by the government to discredit and criminalize the campaign. Stella Nyanzi demonstrates that menstruation and women’s bodies are political and politicized-to the extent that her activism and criticism has led to her imprisonment.