A/HRC/30/39/Add.2 sanitation, violence and poverty have in informal settlements in Nairobi.27 Many women and girls in Kibera expressed to the Special Rapporteur their fears of being victims of violence, including sexual violence, when using public restrooms at night. 81. Menstrual hygiene management that ensures privacy and human dignity is an essential but often forgotten component of the human rights to water and sanitation. Many women the Special Rapporteur met with during the mission shared stories of how difficult it is to reconcile their menstruation days with attending school or working. A small pack of sanitary pads in Kenya costs K Sh 80 on average; women in informal settlements and girls in communities living in poverty all said they could not afford them and therefore used a piece of cloth instead. There are some initiatives to provide reusable sanitary napkins; however, in water-scarce areas or in slums where water is extremely expensive, reusable sanitary napkins are not a realistic solution as they cannot be washed. Without adequate menstrual hygiene management girls are often forced to miss five school days per month. The Special Rapporteur was impressed by the courage of one girl in a remote area in Kanyadhiang who openly said, after being asked what she wanted most to have a better life: “I want one more pair of panties because I only have one and I need to wash them daily. And I want sanitary napkins.” In Turkana, the poorest county, the Special Rapporteur saw a positive effort where the county government provides sanitary pads to secondary school girls. She encourages all counties to adopt similar measures, to give menstrual hygiene greater political and budgetary visibility and to create a specific budget line for menstrual hygiene in their budgets. VI. Conclusions and recommendations 82. While Kenya is often invoked as a model at the international level owing to its constitutional recognition of water and sanitation as human rights and its development of legislation and policies based on those rights, there is still a long way to go to realize the human rights to water and sanitation for all. Much more needs to be done to translate the law into reality for the millions of Kenyans for whom these human rights are still only a mirage. 83. The State should use the opportunity presented by the current drafting of the Water Bill, as well as the upcoming water and sanitation strategy, to use the normative content of the rights to water and sanitation to guide actions in the sector. National mandatory minimum standards should be adopted, or, in some cases, maintained, for the legal content of the rights to water and sanitation, including tariff setting and water quality, as should regulations aimed at prohibiting water disconnections of those unable to pay, including public spaces such as schools, health facilities and prisons. The prioritization of the most marginalized individuals and groups, as provided for in the Constitution, should be clearly reflected in law, policy and financing. 84. In this regard, the Special Rapporteur recommends that the Government of Kenya: (a) Clarify the allocation of functions between various levels of government, and between various government departments, in the provision and regulation of the water and sanitation sectors; 27 Amnesty International, Insecurity and Indignity: Women’s Experiences in the Slums of Nairobi, Kenya (2010), p. 21. 19