There are of course many reasons why women aren’t able to talk about their health openly and comfortably. Nina experienced this firsthand, growing up in the more conservative west of Norway. “It’s very hard to be open about who you are in more conservative cultures,” she recognises. “Our work with refugees was one of the things that really motivated us to start off with this work,” adds Ellen. “We met women who were scared of using contraception because they were scared people in their family would find out and think they were having sex. But they weren’t, they were just having really painful or problematic periods, and they needed contraception for that but they were scared to use it because of the social repercussions.”