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A Kenyan senator was ejected from parliament after attending a session while wearing a white suit stained red in an apparent menstrual activism campaign.
Gloria Orwoba, of the ruling Kenya Kwanza coalition, is due to table a motion on Wednesday on a bill to provide free sanitary pads under a broader effort to end period poverty.
Senators disrupted the Tuesday afternoon session to draw the Speaker’s attention to Ms Orwoba’s “inappropriate dress code”.
But the senator protested, saying: “I am shocked that someone can stand here and say that the House has been disgraced because a woman has had her period.”
Speaker Amason Kingi ordered the senator to go out and change her clothes before she could be readmitted to the chamber.
“Having periods is never a crime … Senator Gloria, I sympathize with you that you are going through the natural act of menstruation. You have stained your wonderful suit. I’m asking you to leave so that you go change and come back with clothes that are not stained,” the Speaker said.
Outside the chamber, Senator Orwoba told journalists that the stain had been an “accident” but was making an important point. She later tweeted:
Drama as Senator Gloria Orwoba is ejected from Senate Plenary session for appearing with a stained trouser [sic]. The senator said she was on her period and that was a ‘natural accident’. pic.twitter.com/AnVxyDHPPJ
— Abdulahi Adan (@AbdulahiAdan10) February 14, 2023
