Kenyan comedian and content creator Millicent Ayuwa, popularly known as Dem Wa Facebook, has called on the government to make sanitary pads freely available in public toilets across the country.
Dem Wa Facebook appealed while speaking at media personality Natalie Githinji’s Endometriosis Warriors (N.E.W) awareness event held at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC) in Nairobi on Sunday, September 27.
The comedian said making pads available in public washrooms would help women and girls who find themselves in need of menstrual products while away from home.
‘Accompany those condoms with pads’
Dem Wa Facebook compared the idea to the availability of condoms in some public washrooms, arguing that women should also have access to basic menstrual products when they need them.
“When you go to the washrooms, most of the time you find that they have put condoms there, so even we women are asking the government to accompany those condoms with pads also, to help women who can’t afford,” she said.
According to the comedian, such a move would particularly benefit girls and women who struggle to afford sanitary products.
She also called for greater support for women’s health programmes, especially in rural areas where access to menstrual products can remain a challenge.
Her proposal comes amid continued conversations about menstrual health and the financial difficulties some women and girls face when trying to access basic period products.
Dem Wa Facebook recalls painful periods.
The comedian’s comments were also informed by her own experience with severe period pain.
Speaking at the same event, Dem Wa Facebook recalled a time when her periods became so painful that she struggled to move around her home and spent entire days feeling unwell.
She said the pain eventually became concerning enough for her to seek medical attention because she felt it was far beyond what she considered normal period discomfort.
“I remember way back when I was getting my periods, I would get so sick and I would be unwell the whole day. I would be crawling in pain in the house, and I would not be in any mood the whole day,” she recalled.
She was told she had a hormonal imbalance.
Dem Wa Facebook said medical professionals told her she did not have a serious underlying condition but had a hormonal imbalance.
She was subsequently given medication, which she said helped reduce the severity of her period pain.
“So when I went, they told me I do not have any issue. It is just that I had a hormone imbalance. And I was given some meds, and from there I have not been feeling period pains a lot,” she said.
Her message to women
Dem Wa Facebook urged women to pay attention when their menstrual experiences become unusually painful and seek medical attention rather than assuming severe pain is always normal.
Her comments at the N.E.W. event combined her personal experience with a broader call for better menstrual health support.
For the comedian, providing sanitary products in public toilets would offer practical help to women caught without pads while also supporting those who cannot consistently afford them.
