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'It's all about self-reliance': North Korean adolescents' menstruation experiences and management

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posted on 2023-04-13, 13:55 authored by Curie Lee, Alan BairnerAlan Bairner

Adolescents in low-income countries, including North Korea, face difficulties with menstrual health management, which impacts their health and schooling. The purpose of this study was to explore the menstruation experiences and management strategies of North Korean adolescents through interviews with North Korean defector women who have settled in South Korea. Semi-structured interviews with seven participants were conducted from November 2021 to January 2022. The findings showed that North Korean adolescents lacked knowledge of menarche and that menstruation was merely perceived to be a bodily excretion. Moreover, North Korean adolescents received little or no support from their families or society during menstruation. The bodies of male and female students were not differentiated, resulting in female adolescents becoming desensitised to the physical and mental pain of menstruation. Furthermore, the participants recalled resorting to suboptimal alternatives to hygiene products and inappropriate menstrual practices. The findings suggest that it may take a long time to address menstrual poverty among North Korean adolescents and that measures to strengthen human rights for North Korean adolescents’ health should be prepared at an international level. Comprehensive education for North Korean youth and active support from parents and teachers regarding menstrual practices are also necessary.

History

School

  • Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences

Published in

Journal of Student Research - High School Edition

Volume

11

Issue

2

Publisher

Journal of Student Research (JSR)

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Rights holder

© Curie Lee; Alan Bairner

Publisher statement

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/. Copyright holder(s) granted JSR a perpetual, non-exclusive license to distribute & display this article.

Publication date

2022-05-31

Copyright date

2022

ISSN

2167-1907

Language

  • en

Depositor

Prof Alan Bairner. Deposit date: 8 April 2023

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