Tales of a Flow Stayed by Nothing: Menstruation in Immigration Detention
Tales of a Flow Stayed by Nothing: Menstruation in Immigration Detention is my own just-published essay contribution to the Columbia Journal of Gender & Law’s 2021 Thirtieth Anniversary Symposium: Are You There Law? It’s Me, Menstruation.
My essay begins with the story of Fauziya Kassindja, as told in her autobiography Do They Hear You When You Cry, a book I cannot recommend highly enough. I write:
When Fauziya Kassindja landed at New York’s JFK airport in 1994, she was seventeen, seeking asylum, and fleeing the brutal practice of female genital mutilation. She was also menstruating. Hours after her arrival, Fauziya was strip searched, forced to stand before a female officer “completely naked, soiled pad exposed, shamed beyond words.” She was then transferred to an off-site detention facility where she was strip-searched again. When Fauziya asked where she should place her soiled pad, the female guard responded: “I don’t know. Why don’t you eat it?” When Fauziya asked for a new pad, she was told she could ask for one the next morning. She was given absolutely nothing to stay her flow—not even toilet paper or paper towels.
My essay then covers some familiar ground–how immigration detention is based in civil law yet it adopts the features of criminal incarceration. I discuss how many female noncitizens are detained: In 2019, an average of 7,700 noncitizen women were held in immigration detention facilities daily and another 4,500 migrant women were held in local jails awaiting transfer to immigration detention. Most of these women, I note, menstruate.
And yet,
Conditions for menstruating women in immigration custody today are not substantially different from those experienced by Fauziya Kassingja in 1994. A 2019 investigation by the state of Washington found that menstruating teens in immigration custody were given a single pad a day, with no opportunity to shower or to get a change of clothing after visibly bleeding through their clothes. A 2009 Human Rights Watch report found that menstruating adult women in immigration custody face similar challenges: officials distributed only a set number of sanitary pads, women experienced difficulties obtaining more pads as needed, and women were forced to wear soiled clothing when their sanitary supplies proved inadequate for their flow.
Let’s take a detour to an important footnote to my essay (edited to remove cites). Why is 1 pad a day insufficient?
A single soaked pad or regular-sized tampon will hold 5 ml of blood. Menstrual cycles vary among women both in length and flow. One study found a median cycle of five days. The authors characterized cycle flows as light if blood flow was less than or equal to 36.5 ml, medium if flow was between 36.5 ml and 72.5 ml, and heavy if flow exceeded 72.5 ml, noting flow was routinely heavier in the first three days of any cycle. Thus, looking at flow capacity alone, a menstruating girl or woman would need two pads or regular-sized tampons per period day if experiencing light flow (as 36.5 ml ÷ 5 days = 7.3 ml/day) or more than four if experiencing heavy flow (as 72.5 ml ÷ 5 days = 14.5 ml/day). But flow capacity is not the only concern for menstruating women and girls. Those who use tampons for more than six hours or overnight are at greater risk for toxic shock syndrome, a life-threatening bacterial infection. Thus, to avoid the risk of toxic shock syndrome, menstruating women need a minimum of four pads or tampons per day.
Detention facility standards indicate that women and girls should receive “sufficient feminine hygiene products.” And yet they do not. Solutions abound:
Women’s bathrooms could be stocked with freely available tampons and pads. If officers insist on maintaining control over these items, signs could be placed near where they are stored, noting “all sanitary supplies are freely available upon request.” Detention officers could be subject to mandatory education on the topic of menstruation and the requirement to distribute sanitary products.
Heck, federal agencies could purchase period underwear and distribute pairs to all menstruating females in custody, in addition to improving access to tampons and pads.
In conclusion:
Females menstruate. This does not change when they enter custodial settings. It is up to the federal government to ensure that migrant women and girls within their charge consistently receive the period supplies and related medical care they need. The fact that the government has not consistently met this obligation highlights the problematic way in which civil immigration detention, ostensibly designed not to punish, nevertheless impermissibly punishes female migrants.
-KitJ