女性スポーツ競技者にとって、月経期間に痛みや症状があることは、競技力向上を目指す上でストレッサーとなることが予測される。本研究は経血の処置方法に着目し、

The purpose of this paper is to investigate what kind of education about menstrual hygiene management is given at primary schools in Papua New Guinea and how female students are dealing with menstruation. It presents what needs to be done in order to bring women's practices into line with recent policies and development projects related to menstrual hygiene management.

The target of the survey was a primary school in a rural area of East Sepik Province. At the primary school, “classes” related to menstrual hygiene are held. I explain the contents of the “class” and the toilet facilities of the school and present the results of a questionnaire survey conducted with female students. The “class” is based on modern views of reproduction and hygiene. School toilet facilities are inadequate to maintain hygiene and privacy for managing menstruation, for example broken doors, no trash bins, and no incinerators. When dealing with menstruation for female students at the primary school, fears related to menstruation and shame against menstruation were observed.

In this paper, I show that the perception which considers menstruation as an embarrassment was born in modern education and it should be considered as a separate thing from taboos and fears over menstruation. For the new generation who go to school and use disposable sanitary pads, it is obvious that menstrual blood adhering to used pads has made them dirty, rather than an ambiguity between fertile and impure. I show that the improvement of absorbent sanitary products and toilet facilities under the policy and development project for dealing with menstrual hygiene can reduce feelings of fear and shame about menstruation. I also clarify that the spread of reusable cloth pads is not considered appropriate for women's practices when hygiene is considered.

In this paper, the author discusses what kind of assistance or actions would be appropriate that are based on emic realities of local communities, through a case study of teens'menstrual hygiene management (MHM) in “another Nicaragua.” The following three questions are explored to answer the inquiry: 1) What kind of large contexts do exist to generate “poverty pocket” areas where prerequisite basic infrastructure and public services for MHM are not provided while the country's economic conditions have been significantly improved?; 2) Under such social conditionings, how do teens going to public secondary schools deal with their menstruation at school and home?; and 3) what kind of supports or actions would be appropriate that are context-relevant to such realities? The field survey was conducted in Waspan city, the center of Waspan district of RACN (Nicaragua North Caribbean Autonomous Region), which is a border city to Honduras.

The following are the major findings of the research. First, regarding the contexts, it is confirmed that the Caribbean Nicaragua, where mixed-race indigenous Miskito people reside, has a history of multiple marginalizations. The region was first colonized by the UK and then economically exploited by US companies, and has also been encroached on and abandoned by the largely Mestizo Nicaraguan government. Second, the teen's MHM realities are examined. Interviews with middle school teachers revealed that there are no related programs or projects or even budget to fix school toilets destroyed by hurricanes. Questionnaires, interviews and domicile visits of the teens made clear that hygiene issues such as dirty toilets and shortage of water were of much greater concern than menstruation issues such as period pains or blood leakages. Possible correlations between alimentation and light menstruation are implied. Finally, the author makes some recommendations to realize context-relevant MHM supports/actions referring both to emic realities and etic MHM definitions and programs.

This paper attempts to describe how the cultural customs and practices related to menstruation have changed among Khmer women in contemporary rural Cambodia and examine the theory behind this phenomenon. It explores both the continuity and discontinuity of cultural norms, beliefs and material culture after the long-term civil war.

Menstruation is both a biological phenomenon and a socio-cultural phenomenon, and is considered taboo in Khmer society. These days it has become part of the global agenda within international development policy and a trigger confrontation between aid workers and local people. Menstruation is a culturally sensitive topic, therefore outsider's interventions without realizing the local reality will cause inter-cultural conflict and social distortion. However, studies about menstruation focused on local women's experiences in Cambodia are limited because of its cultural position that menstruation is kept “silent” in the society. This article explores the many different ways in which this topic is discussed in Khmer culture through in-depth interviews with girls, their mothers, grandmothers, teachers, local market vendors, aid workers, and government officers.

These results show that with globalization, modernization, and the growing importance of school education and paid work, the traditional ceremony of the first menstrual period is decreasing and the meanings of a “good life of women” are changing. Besides these changes, because of a huge expansion in trade, the dissemination of sanitary napkins among local people expands the sphere of women's action and lengthens the time spent outside of their house. Because of currently increasing globalized development interventions, it is crucial that we are familiar with existing cultural and social views and attitudes toward menstruation.