London: After getting the green light from the California-based organisation that manages emojis, a period emoji will appear on smartphone keyboards soon in 2019. Unicode has confirmed that the blood droplet shape emoticon will be rolled out on smartphone keyboards worldwide as early as this spring.

It comes after more than 55,000 people called for a period emoji to be added to the global emoji keyboard last year, in a campaign led by global girl’s rights charity Plan International. They say it will help break down the silence, stigma and taboos surrounding periods and give women and girls “a much-needed new way to talk about their periods”.

After getting the green light from the California-based organisation that manages emojis, a period emoji will appear on smartphone keyboards soon in 2019. Unicode has confirmed that the blood droplet shape emoticon will be rolled out on smartphone keyboards worldwide as early as this spring.

It comes after more than 55,000 people called for a period emoji to be added to the global emoji keyboard last year, in a campaign led by global girl’s rights charity Plan International. They say it will help break down the silence, stigma and taboos surrounding periods and give women and girls “a much-needed new way to talk about their periods”.

“For years we’ve obsessively silenced and euphemised periods,” she added. “As experts in girls’ rights, we know that this has a negative impact on girls; girls feel embarrassed to talk about their periods, they’re missing out, and they can suffer health implications as a consequence.

“An emoji isn’t going to solve this, but it can help change the conversation. Ending the shame around periods begins with talking about it”.

Recently four of the women have lost their lives in Nepal due to a taboo for a girl to be banished during the menstruation period called “Chhaupadi”.  Correspondingly, thousands of girls are reported to be suffering to go to school, college in Nepal and south Asian nation due to the feeling of humiliation during their period. Poverty and lack of the availability of sanitary pad in the rural part of the country are other big problems that have brought  Veginal and other blood related sanitary infections to many women, Rita Pariyar ,  a social worker from Nepal said.