ANKARA — Turkish authorities’ denying a female inmate’s access to disposable tampons sparked online outrage among women's rights supporters in Turkey on Monday after prominent human rights activist Cigdem Mater, who has been behind bars for over a year, said her request for tampons was repeatedly denied.
Mater, who is serving an 18-year sentence over allegedly plotting to "overthrow" the government, detailed the suffering she is enduring in an article she wrote for Turkish news website Bianet on Monday. She recounted that her request to access disposable tampons that were not available in the prison store was rejected several times by Turkish authorities, including a physician who claimed that Turkish women do not use tampons.
“The canteen sells only hygienic pads, not tampons, so I petitioned for it,” Mater wrote. “My request was rejected by the [Justice] Ministry on the grounds that ‘tampons are not among designated products to be sold in the canteen.’ I thought I could have the gynecologist prescribe them to me. Yet the (male) physician who pays biweekly visits to the prison from Sadi Konuk Hospital rejected my request on the grounds that ‘Turkish women do not use tampons’ — the moments when we realize that even tampons have a nationality.”
For female prisoners, proper access to menstrual products has been a problem in many developed and underdeveloped countries alike, but using tampons is sort of a taboo for many women in Muslim-majority Turkey as in other Muslim-majority countries due to a misconception that tampons could damage the hymen and, therefore, virginity. “I can't prove this, but I swear those who make the list of designated products to be sold at canteens and those who approve them are all males,” Mater noted.
