In the UK, periods still carry a certain stigma. But the taboo is vastly magnified in India, where it’s estimated that only 12% of the country’s menstruating women are able to afford sanitary pads (the other 88% are often forced to use alternatives such as unsanitised cloth, ashes and sand). The practice of banishing rural women and girls to huts outside their villages during their periods is prevalent in parts of central India, and over 30% of girls in northern India say that they dropped out of school after starting menstruating.

The United Nations says that stigma around menstruation is a human rights issue, and over the last few years there have been several campaigns designed to dispel myths surrounding periods in the country. Breaking the Silence, an education initiative launched by journalist and campaigner Urmila Chanam, has reached women and girls all over the country, while the hashtag #HappyToBleed went viral back in late 2015.

Now one group of medical school students in southern India have picked up the baton – by picking up their pens.

Young women in India are writing beautiful period-inspired poetry