Pema Lhaki is a Menstrual Health activist and an ‘Instinctive Feminist’ working largely on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in Nepal. She is actively engaged in research, ground level implementation and policy level advocacy. She is the Executive Director at Nepal Fertility Care Center (NFCC), a national NGO which has been working on reproductive health for the past three decades, pioneering many reproductive health interventions that are now part of the Government of Nepal’s national programs. 

She entered the public health sector in 2001 and started to focus on menstruation in 2008, and works with four key ministries (Health, Education, WASH and Protection) of the Government of Nepal, bilateral organizations, international NGOs’, women networks and schools to ensure no female feels ‘disempowered’ because of menstruation. Apart from developing the basic MHM training package, which is being rolled out in Nepal, Pema has also contributed to the development of many global resources like the MHM in Emergencies Toolkit and the ABYMMA scale, a standardized tool to measure change in attitudes towards menstruation. She has led many studies on menstrual health, hygiene and rights. Some of her work has been covered in the award winning Al Jazeera documentary: ‘Banished - Nepal’s Menstrual Exiles’ and partly in the BBC article, Banished for Bleeding.  

Pema led the development of the National Cervical Cancer Screening and Prevention Implementation Plan for the Government of Nepal. Her academic work on HPV and cervical cancer has been published in many scientific journals. 

Pema is also passionate about preventing and ending Gender Based Violence. She has led the establishment of a Rape Crisis Center using the Private Public Partnership approach and works closely with Tibetan Refugee schools and communities in Nepal to develop a Response Mechanism for Sexual and Gender Based Violence.