I had a training in Bangladesh last summer, and the trip included a short stay in a village located roughly 200km away from Dhaka, the capital city. During my stay there, I had my monthly period and was too careless to forgot my sanitary napkins. I was panicked as I had no idea where could I purchase them in the village where I can only see grocery stores selling agriculture and basic daily goods. Fortunately I was helped by a foreign lady who lived there for more than 30 years, married to a local man and working as a social worker. We started a conversation, which brought me to deeper understanding of the situation of sexuality and women here.

What do you think about this?

• When we [the ladies] are catching up with our "best friend" every month, some of us might have great pain or feel uncomfortable with the hormonal changes in our body. We also need to be more careful with our hygiene at this time: even though what we need to do is just to change and throw away the dirty [sanitary] napkin with a new one, yet sometimes it feels so troublesome to deal with them.

Let see how some women actually deal with it over there.

First, they have to fold a cloth and use it as napkins. After it gets dirty, they will wash it in a small room commonly used for washing, and leave it to dry there. Despite the trouble one has to go through, and not to mention the hygiene problem, the cloth will still be used and reused again, (as it is the only option available to the women in the village). It seemed so easy to write the process in just a few lines, but take a second to think about it. Can you imagine yourself having to do this every month?

(I asked my friend:) Why don’t they use sanitary napkins instead?

• [Because] they are poor and can’t afford it.

Growing up in a society where such an issue hardly exists, for the first time I have seen and learnt something very different. Today, there are still societies where a woman tends to be treated badly with no consideration given to her thoughts and feelings. The husband does not actually care for the family, and their children. He earns a meager wage that ends up being spent on "luxury items" such as cigarettes, or getting drunk and yet feigning innocence afterwards. Basic needs for the family are ignored in most cases: if the mouths are being fed, or are the children being educated, etc. He might even run away after racking in countless debts, leaving the wife and children to deal with the consequences.

On the other hand, he insists on having sex every night.

The wife is not given the luxury to say things like, "Honey, I’m sorry but I’m not in the mood for it tonight", but rather to simply obey the husband than trying to make an ugly scene that might draw unnecessary and unwanted attention to their domestic issues. "Obedience" is the word that governs her life.

A problem that arises from such nightly activities is pregnancy. In the modern society where family planning plays an important role, there is little sight of it in this area. According to the doctor in one of the villages, husbands in general do nothing to prevent pregnancy. In the worst case scenario, he might just run away one day, abandoning the pregnant and helpless wife. Thus it is entirely up to the wives to take preventive contraceptive measures by injection, birth-controlled pills, or tying the fallopia tube.

In this conservative society, the wife is required to clean herself after sex before she is allowed to do housework, prepare food or other chores. It is common in such villages for her to bathe herself in the river early in the morning. Sometimes she has to do it quietly as she is shy to let others know that she had sex with her husband the previous night. On the contrary, the sexual relationship between a man and his wife would come under much scrutiny by the local gossips if the woman is never seen bathing in the river.

Such accounts shocked me greatly when they reached my ears. Before this, I had never understood why there were so many people working for women’s rights, as I as a woman, have lived comfortably even in the male-dominated society of Japan, in a Muslim country like Malaysia where male and female are separated in some occasions, and in a stereotypical Chinese family where sons are preferred than daughters. I move freely, actively and uninhibitedly even when I have my monthly cycle. I am not yet married but I know that I have the right to disagree with my partner in any situation.

To know that somewhere in the modern world that such inequality is happening is very differently when one is confronted with it. The privilege of seeing and hearing such accounts have opened up my eyes to issues that I would not have been able to imagine previously. It has made me more aware and appreciative of the things that I tend to take for granted.

I started to be more aware of these issues and wish I could do something to help these women gain their basic rights. This article is an attempt to share my experience and to voice their situation to the other societies where people might not aware of these happenings like I was.