The UK government announces free menstrual hygiene products for all secondary schools and colleges

Thanks to activists, menstrual hygiene has been recognized as a political issue. Not everyone is given easy access to the necessary health products, as it’s been considered a “luxury item.” Fortunately, we see things are now slowly changing. In the UK, their government has announced that they will provide free sanitary products in secondary schools and colleges across England starting next school year.

The new policy comes after End Period Poverty campaigners demanded action from their government to give girls from low-income families access to menstrual products. Prior this news, their National Health Service also announced that they will provide free sanitary products to all hospital patients.

The new policy will reportedly simulate how Scotland did it. In 2018, they became the first country in the world to give free access to sanitary products to all its schools, colleges and universities.

This is indeed a great win for gender equality in UK. According to a 2017 survey by Plan International, as many as one in 10 girls in UK are unable to afford sanitary products (with 12 per cent having to improvise their own) which results in them missing school.

I’m sure many girls here in our country experience that too. I hope our own government will have enough sense to adopt a similar policy.

[Vogue UK]