A new campaign, Red Alert: You've Got a Napkin!, was launched on Wednesday after 45 women were allegedly strip-searched at a factory in Kochi where a sanitary napkin was found.
It involves sending in either used or unused sanitary napkins to the officials of Asma Rubber Private Limited, where the strip-search was held. On the campaign's Facebook page, activists urged people to send in napkins to the factory.
They instructed:
Protest against this inhuman act! Send a napkin (used or unused) to the MD of the company and mark your protest against this inhuman act.
Scroll reported that the incident at the Asma factory is just the latest in a string of incidents against women's rights that have encouraged Red Alert campaigners to take up this initiative.
"Some people have already sent pads to the company," said Maya Leela, a campaigner from Trivandrum, in the Scroll report.
"Women should not face any discrimination in society due to their biology. The body politics that is practiced by patriarchy on women must change."
This campaign comes from the same people that organised the Kiss of Love campaign of late 2014, which protested moral policing of public displays of affection.
On their Facebook page, they say:
This is not a singular act. The lack of, let alone hygienic, but minimal sanitation facilities is a grave issue that women face on a daily basis. Several places do not even allow employees to go to the toilet more than twice during their work time. The several cases reported recently about the discrimination by KSRTC employees towards 'possibly' menstruating women is another instance of this kind which accuses women of 'polluting' and 'contaminating' public and at times, sacred spaces through their presence.