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'Free Bleeding' is a protest elsewhere, in Turkana, it is survival

Impact of menstrual health and hygiene on girls' education in Kenya(Photo: iStock)

It began, as many modern movements do, with a hashtag. Around 2015, women running the London Marathon bled openly through their athletic shorts, refusing to apologise for a biological reality society has long insisted be hidden.

The phrase ‘free bleeding’ soon entered public discourse, igniting fierce debate in Europe and North America. For some, it was a radical protest; for others, provocation.

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