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Unanimous parliamentary vote: Scottish women have free access to menstrual products.
Hardly anyone thinks about it at first: if a mother has very little money to put food on the table for her children, there is not enough budget for sanitary napkins either.
If a teenager grows up in poverty, she may not have tampons because her parents need money for food, rent, or electricity bills.
Every tenth girl is affected
When British food banks ask for donations (food dispensers), people are always asked to donate menstrual products in addition to food.
About a fifth of all people in the UK live in poverty. According to a study by “Plan International” , The link opens in a new windowOne in ten girls does not have enough money for monthly hygiene products. The crown crisis and the associated increase in poverty have exacerbated the problem.
Instead, socks
Many politicians and organizations fought against the problem under the slogans #periodpoverty and #freeperiodproducts.
Kerry Wright from Aberdeen, Scotland, is one of the women. She herself comes from a poor family and as a child she only had toilet paper at her disposal: “My parents had no money to buy it and every time I had my days I tried socks or toilet paper to stop.”
Scots are the first
On Tuesday evening, the Scottish Parliament finally passed the necessary law. In the future, local authorities will be responsible for ensuring that menstrual products are freely available to everyone.
This is a world first. The Scots made history in 2018, when they were the first to start selling their products for free to schools and universities.
Similar discussions and projects are taking place in other countries as well. But the Scots are definitely the pioneers. It certainly helps that the UK health system, the NHS, is funded by taxpayer money.
The pill is also free
Women can already get many medications or even birth control pills free of charge from the gynecologist. So it seems less exotic than anywhere else.
The Scottish government estimates the annual cost to be £ 9.7 million. MEP Monica Lennon, who initiated the motion, wrote on Twitter: “Today is a great day for Scotland and it is a signal to the world that free access to menstrual products is possible.”
