This paper empirically explores the impact of COVID-19 pandemic and its accompanying lockdown on adolescent girls’ and women's access to sanitary pads in India. We have used the National Health Mission's Health Management Information System (NHM-HMIS) data for the study, which provides data on pads' distribution on a district level. The empirical strategy used in the study exploits the variation of districts into red, orange, and green zones as announced by the Indian Government. To understand how lockdown severity impacts access to sanitary pads, we used a difference-in-difference (DID) empirical strategy to study sanitary pads' access in red and orange zones compared to green zones. We find clear evidence of the impact of lockdown intensity on the provision of sanitary pads, with districts with the strictest lockdown restrictions suffering the most. Our study highlights how sanitary pads distribution was overlooked during the pandemic, leaving girls and women vulnerable to managing their menstrual needs. Thus, there is a requirement for strong policy to focus on the need to keep sanitary pads as part of the essential goods to ensure the needs of the girls and women are met even in the midst of a pandemic, central to an inclusive response.

中文翻译：

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COVID-19 封锁如何影响印度少女和妇女的卫生巾分发

本文实证探讨了 COVID-19 大流行及其随之而来的封锁对印度少女和妇女使用卫生巾的影响。我们在研究中使用了国家卫生使命的健康管理信息系统 (NHM-HMIS) 数据，该系统提供了各地区卫生巾分布的数据。研究中使用的实证策略利用了印度政府宣布的红色、橙色和绿色区域的变化。为了了解封锁的严重程度如何影响卫生巾的使用情况，我们使用双重差分 (DID) 实证策略来研究红色和橙色区域与绿色区域的卫生巾使用情况。我们发现了明确的证据表明封锁强度对卫生巾供应的影响，封锁限制最严格的地区受影响最严重。我们的研究强调了在大流行期间卫生巾的分发是如何被忽视的，导致女孩和妇女容易无法满足她们的月经需求。因此，需要制定强有力的政策，重点关注将卫生巾作为必需品的一部分，以确保女孩和妇女的需求即使在大流行期间也能得到满足，这是包容性应对措施的核心。