Vadodara: Inside a temple premises in Dahod, where prayers echo through the day, the hum of a few small machines draws the attention of devotees. Many watch in admiration as Shanti Rathwa and a small group of women make sanitary napkins at a pad manufacturing unit set up in a temple compound at Chopat Palli village.Once branded a witch by her family and villagers, who beat her and drove her out of the tribal village in Limkheda taluka, Rathwa has come a long way. Her life could have ended in obscurity on the streets, but she chose to rebuild it stitch by stitch. Today, this gritty woman commands respect among people who once wanted to kill her.“I was branded a witch by my own family 12 years ago and thrown out of our house. The villagers also assaulted me and banished me from the village as they considered me ‘a bad omen’. I had nowhere to go,” Rathwa recalled. The 45-year-old slept on the streets for a few days before finding shelter at a religious institution outside her village. Luck turned when she met Swati Bedekar, who trains women to make sanitary napkins and helps them set up manufacturing units to ensure financial independence.“I bumped into her during an educational project in Limkheda and was moved by her ordeal. I convinced her to learn pad making, which would help her make ends meet. Initially, she was hesitant, but then Rathwa and some other women agreed,” Swati Bedekar, often dubbed the pad-woman of Gujarat, told TOI.The villagers, however, refused to even give her a small piece of land. “It was then that the priest of the Hanuman Temple allowed her to set up the sanitary napkin unit on the premises. Considering how periods are still stigmatized in rural areas, I was pleasantly surprised,” Bedekar said.Rathwa, a mother of two, got financial aid under a govt scheme and bought a machine. “My troubles didn’t end there. Some villagers used to pelt stones at me and sometimes cut off the power supply to my unit. They didn’t let women work in my unit. But I persisted, often working alone. Gradually, I began earning a decent sum,” said Rathwa, who has studied till Class 7.“Soon, a few women joined me and we began selling the pads to primary health centres, anganwadis and families in nearby villages. As the number of orders went up, I even roped in a few girls to market our product,” Rathwa said. She has hired 20 women at the unit, which still operates from the temple premises and manufactures around 2,000 pads a day.Rathwa, who could barely speak a few words a decade ago, now interacts confidently with govt officials. “The people who once shunned me now often come to meet us at our unit. Our products are sold in 15 villages and we plan to expand our manufacturing soon,” she added.More importantly, Rathwa has launched a campaign against witch-branding in her region. “I go to different villages, narrate my story and speak against this superstition that has ruined the lives of many women,” Rathwa said.
