Using socks as sanitary pads

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Women are using socks as sanitary pads and stealing tampons from supermarkets as they struggle with ‘‘period poverty’’, a counsellor says.

Zarna Blossom said she was shocked at the level of poverty in Marlborough for what she called a ‘‘basic human need’’, which even forced some teenage girls to skip school.

Blossom and friend Milinda Higgins decided to start Pink Packets, a new initiative helping women unable to afford sanitary products.

With the help of rural posties, they delivered flyers across parts of rural Marlborough asking people to leave sanitary products in their letter boxes.

The following week, the posties collected about 200 sanitary items, filling one rubbish bag and two boxes.

Blossom, a counsellor with community support trust Bread of Life, said all sorts of people were affected by ‘‘period poverty’’.

She was shocked when clients started telling her what they had done, she said.

‘‘It was a shock to me and I’m not easily shocked in my room,’’ she said. ‘‘One girl that got done for shoplifting was stealing tampons. Well obviously she’s not

‘‘That was how desperate she was that she would go to the supermarket and try and steal tampons.’’ Zarna Blossom

stealing it for fun so that was a shock to me ... that was how desperate she was that she would go to the supermarket and try and steal tampons.’’

Another girl told her she was forced to wear socks in her underwear because her family could not afford sanitary items.

‘‘[She] was explaining to me that she’s got sisters and they synchronise their cycle and the mum would end up needing to buy four sets of products and it’s a lot of money so this girl was reduced to wearing socks in her underwear,’’ she said.

‘‘I think everybody assumes if there’s a poverty, it’s the beneficiaries, our traditional image of a poor family, it’s not. I mean that girl with the sisters, her mum works fulltime.

‘‘I didn’t realise we had that level of poverty and to me that is a poverty because that is a basic human need.’’

Pharmac last April rejected a request to fund all women’s sanitary items. The Government drugbuying agency rejected the request on the grounds that sanitary products were not medicines.

Marlborough Girls’ College principal Mary-jeanne Lynch said she was aware some students struggled to afford sanitary items.

‘‘Anecdotally, that is a concern of ours and it will be for a number of schools with teenage girls,’’ she said. ‘‘We are a decile 7 school and there is definitely an issue at our school and for some of our girls and their families.’’

Higgins said some residents also donated cash to the Pink Packets collection last week. The money would be used to buy menstrual cups.

‘‘The whole end goal for us is to ease off the packets and to get education out there as to using menstrual cups,’’ Higgins said.

‘‘They last for a woman’s lifetime pretty much and they save about 14,000 tampons per person, per lifetime.’’

In November, Finance Minister Grant Robertson announced a new working tax group which he said could possibly consider removing GST from women’s products. To donate to Pink Packets, go to their Givealittle page.