Councillor’s remark over period poverty sparks heated debate
Alliance proposes free sanitary products at local facilities
A comment about “calling out plumbers” during a debate on period poverty at a council meeting has been slammed by a Ballymena councillor.
Patricia O’lynn had brought forward a motion on period poverty at a special meeting of Mid and East Antrim Borough Councilonfriday.
The Alliance councillor angrily dismissed a remark by Ulster Unionist councillor Keith Turner who said that provision of sanitary products in council buildings was about “logistics”.
Mr Turner was commenting after Ms O’lynn proposed that the could should provide free sanitary products in its sports grounds, public buildings and council facilities, starting with each of the area’s town halls.
He said that if these items were freely available in some venues, they would be abused.
“We have to call out plumbers and such like in the way toilet roll is being abused. The idea is sound but the logistics need to be looked at,” he said.
Ms O’lynn said: “Periods do not stop during a pandemic. How long would it take for these extra measures to be put in place?”
She queried whether toilet roll would be withdrawn if loos became clogged up. “Period poverty is a very real challenge facing many girls and women in
the UK. Those experiencing period poverty are unable to access menstruation products,” she said.
She said that according to children’s charity, Plan International, one in 10 females are unable to afford menstruation products at some time in their life. She said that 40% of girls and women have had to use toilet roll, socks or plastic bags instead.
“Having to resort to such measures is humiliating, degrading and can lead to poor physical and mental health. Period poverty in a country as well off as ours is a scandal,” she said.
Seconding the motion, Carrickfergus Alliance councillor Lauren Gray also pointed out that “periods do not stop for a pandemic”. She added that the motion is also about “changing mindsets” by making period products “as visible as possible” and to “give girls a safe space to access products if they need to”.
Sinn Fein councillor James Mckeown and Ulster Unionist councillor Maureen Morrow also supported wider provision.
DUP councillor Audrey Wales instead proposed that the council “recognises the work” by others to make period products more freely available, and asked the council’s Community Planning team “to assist them in securing anygrantswhichcomeavailable in the future”. This was carried by 20 votes in favour and nine against.
THE murder of Sarah Everard has unleashed a “tidal wave” of women no longer willing to accept male violence, one of the organisers of a campaign in her honour has said.
Jamie Klingler, who helped create the viral Reclaim These Streets campaign, said it had been “hard to watch from afar” as the peaceful vigil they had planned in Clapham Common ended in clashes between attendees and officers.
Organisers had been forced to cancel the event after the Metropolitan Police insisted it would be in breach of coronavirus restrictions, a move that Ms Klingler argues only escalated the violence when people turned up anyway.
“I think we were shocked and to see videos of policemen handling women at a vigil about violence against women by men. I think it was painful to see,” she said yesterday.
“The fact that nobody stepped in and said: ‘Do you see how this looks?’ The fact that Thursday and Friday they wasted our organising time by dragging us to the High Court for our human rights to protest and we were going to have a silent vigil.
“Especially today, it’s Mother’s Day. It’s the week of International
Women’s Day. Instead of facilitating it like the Lambeth police wanted to —and that police force was so supportive — Scotland Yard quashed us and in doing so silenced us and got the reaction they got last night.”
The campaigner also criticised the Met’s defence of its actions, after Assistant Commissioner Helen Ball said officers were put in a position “where enforcement action was necessary”.
Ms Klingler said the event would have been carried out safely had the original Reclaim The Streets vigil been permitted, adding that people had only crowded close together because they could not hear the speakers.