Scotland offers low-income women sanitary products for free

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Scotland’s latest government project tackles an aspect of poverty that is often overlooked: women’s reproductive health.

The project particularly responds to “period poverty” which refers to poor women being unable to access products for their menstruation because they can’t afford them, reports BBC.

Besides hurting their dignity, lack of access to sanitary products limits women and girls’ access to education and work. They tend to miss school because they have no products to cover up their bleeding during their period.

According to Ewan Gunn of the Trussell Trust, napkins and tampons are beyond the budget of low-income women and girls. They use newspaper, toilet paper or socks as substitutes for sanitary products.

“Schools and colleges will provide condoms for something that you can abstain from, but you cannot abstain from having your period. We need to find a way that we can provide for this issue right now,” said Gunn.

“It is unacceptable that any woman or girl in Scotland should be unable to access sanitary products,” said communities, social security and equalities secretary Angela Constance. “That is why, as part of our wider aims to eradicate poverty from our country, we are exploring how to make products freely available to low-income groups.” Niña V. Guno/JB

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