Period Products Free For Students: Joining a global drive to end ‘period poverty’, the French government on Tuesday made period products free for students who have the inability to pay for menstrual protection. Making the announcement, French Higher Education Minister Frederique Vidal said that machines containing free tampons, sanitary towels and other period products would be installed in student residences and university health services in the coming weeks. The development comes as President Emmanuel Macron had in December promised to address the issue of period poverty.
Moreover, she added that the French government plans to make period protection “completely free of charge” for all by the start of the next academic year in September.
Prior to this, Scotland in November became the first country in the world to make period products free for all, blazing a trail that inspired feminists and anti-poverty campaigners around the world to also take up the issue of period poverty.
Apart from this, free period products in England are available in all primary and secondary schools — a move New Zealand said last week it too would implement.
What is period poverty?
By definition, ‘Period poverty’ is a significant lack of menstrual hygiene and other essential sanitary products along with toilets and clean water. The ‘Period poverty’ is usually found in areas that are financially not well off, subjecting young girls and women and even men to lack of hygiene. Although the United Nations has already recognized menstrual hygiene as a global public health and human-rights issue, an overwhelming number of women in Asian nations are still suffering from lack of menstrual and basic sanitary hygiene issues.
According to reports from UNCIEF and Water-aid, a lot of girls do not have the full understanding of menstruation and even a lot of them even have to miss schools on their first day of periods because of lack of facilities for menstrual hygiene.
Apart from other countries, schools in New Zealand will also start offering free period products from June as authorities have felt female students have been forced to skip school during periods because of non-affordability of menstrual products like tampons and sanitary pads.