FEATURE
MENSTRUAL EQUITY: IT’S A NECESSITY
Chris Brown, Head of Public Sector at phs Group, talks to Tomorrow’s FM about the urgent need to address period poverty in schools and how FMs can help.
If you’re working with the education sector, there’s an issue you need to be familiar worth; period poverty. It is the term used to describe when someone is unable to afford or access menstrual products. While poverty is perhaps something we may not like to associate with our society, research has proven that it’s very much a live issue here in the UK.
As part of our newly launched period poverty initiative, we commissioned research into the experiences and opinions of 1,000 teenage girls across the UK. Shockingly, we found half of girls believe period poverty holds girls back from doing well at school. And what’s more, a third went on to say they feel it holds girls back from achieving their aspirations. Half also said they feel let down not enough has been done to prevent it.
When it comes to experiences, a third of girls admit they, or someone they know, has been impacted by period poverty in the last 12 months. One in 20 (5%) say they had been unable, or found it difficult, to afford sanitary products in the last 12 months with 4% saying they were unable to access them entirely. This has led to nearly one in five girls wearing sanitary products longer than they should, nearly one in 10 wearing something else other than sanitary products and the same amount having to spend their lunch or travel money on products. In addition, 1% have to resort to theft.
We believe that the statistics speak for themselves. The findings are clear; period poverty is a real issue and one that needs tackling – fast. The good news is that the UK Government and Welsh Government have vowed to tackle period poverty by offering access to free menstrual products in all schools with a similar directive already in place in
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Scotland. This means that every school is going to need to provide free products and this needs to be facilitated.
While this new pledge is a huge step forward, it will depend highly on how accessible these products are made in schools. A fifth (21%) of girls say they have no access to free sanitary products at home or elsewhere and, although 6% say they understand there is access to free products at their school, they do not know where these can be accessed from. Over three quarters (76%) of girls say they feel there should be free access to products in schools with 52% saying this should be in the form of free vending machines in the school toilets.
But we’re not here just to talk about the issue, we are here to take action. That’s why phs has announced it will provide its free-vend sanitary machines at no cost to schools, in conjunction with local authorities, unitary authorities and government.
We’ve worked with local authorities, schools, government and FM providers to develop these coin-free vends which are a practical and affordable solution. Placed within washrooms, they offer girls products whenever they need it both conveniently and discreetly. We’ve pledged to provide these machines free of charge to schools as we honour our commitment to do the right thing when it comes to period poverty.
We believe that access to menstrual products is a necessity, not a luxury. We want to make a difference to the experiences of young girls in our communities, creating a culture of period equity which every girl deserves.
The new phs Period Poverty research report can be viewed here.
https://www.phs.co.uk/about-phs/period-poverty/ www.phs.co.uk twitter.com/TomorrowsFM
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