This is further proof of a daily life that has become impossible for the Lebanese.
Between the economic collapse and inflation, Chérine can no longer afford to buy sanitary napkins.
Each month, when she has her period, the young mother uses old rags, even her baby's diapers.
"At first, I had to check that my pants were not stained," she admits, referring to the difficulties in adapting to this new economic precariousness which upsets even her privacy.
"With the high prices and the anger I feel, I'm at the point where I would rather not have my period," laments the 28-year-old woman.
When the price of the sanitary napkins she bought before the crisis rose, Chérine tried to find a more affordable brand.
The new towels gave him allergies.
>> To see: Lebanon: between shortages and depreciation of the currency, the Lebanese are sinking into poverty
With the depreciation of the Lebanese pound that nothing seems to stop, the new prices on the shelves that adjust to the exchange rate on the black market and wages that do not follow, even the ordinarily cheap brands are inaccessible.
The prices of sanitary napkins have often quintupled.
Depending on the brand, packages that once cost less than 3,000 pounds - or two dollars - now sell for between 13,000 and 34,000 pounds.
Chérine has made up her mind and prefers to take care of the needs of her little girl of a few months first: "I prefer to buy her milk, I can bear it."
She would never have thought that one day she would use her little one's diapers for herself, which she obtains thanks to donations.
"I cut the diaper in half, like that, it gives me two uses, especially when I go out," she says.
"I use towels, scraps of fabric".
Galloping inflation
Chérine also gave up analgesics that relieved the pain of the first days of menstruation.
Savings, "in case my daughter needs anything."
The economic collapse has plunged Lebanon into large-scale impoverishment: 55% of the population now live below the poverty line according to the UN.
The daily life is marked by serious shortages, in particular of drugs.
Hyperinflation is likely to worsen further: to compensate for the depletion of foreign currency reserves, the authorities are seeking to reduce subsidies which, in fact, are no longer sufficient to curb the vertiginous rise in the prices of certain products, such as flour or fuels.
In any case, the leaders never saw fit to include sanitary napkins in the lists of subsidized products.
In the "Party Outfit" shop in Beirut, which offers used clothes and food aid free of charge to the most disadvantaged, Izdihar admits that she can no longer pay for sanitary napkins for her or her three teenage girls, the eldest of whom is 14 years old.
"Sometimes I take baby diapers here at the store," said this employee of the store, specifying that her youngest has just had her first period.
The 12-year-old keeps repeating that she doesn't know how to use diapers or scraps of fabric.
"It affects her psychologically, when she has her period, she no longer leaves the house," she adds.
Solidarity
To support women, several initiatives have been launched.
"Dawrati" ("My cycle") wants to fight against "menstrual poverty" and distributes women's baskets containing sanitary napkins to the poorest, explains the co-founder of this project, Line Tabet Masri.
Families or students who once offered sanitary napkins can no longer afford them themselves, she explains.
The team is called upon by "middle-class women," she adds.
"We are not able to respond to all requests because donations have decreased considerably."
In Shatila camp in Beirut, Palestinian refugees displaced from Syria learn how to make reusable tissue sanitary napkins.
This project is the result of the collaboration between the NGO "Days for Girls" and the local association WingWoman Lebanon, which will distribute these towels in disadvantaged regions such as Akkar (north) or in refugee camps.
Rima Ali is one of the budding seamstresses.
She and her three daughters also use these new towels, after having bought the cheapest products for years.
The Lebanese crisis has awakened in the forties memories of the bloody conflict in Syria, which she fled nine years ago.
"We lived in difficult conditions. We cut up old clothes and used them" as sanitary napkins.
I did not expect to relive this same scenario today ".
With AFP
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