Plans to give free sanitary products to schoolgirls
FREE sanitary products could be available to all girls in secondary schools in Rhonnda Cynon Taff if the council passes a new motion later this month.
Plaid Cymru are tabling the proposal, set to go before councillors on Wednesday, July 19, which would offer free tampons and towels to all 7,678 girls in the borough – acknowedging sanitary products are “as essential as toilet paper for the personal hygiene of female pupils”.
The motion, brought by new councillor Elyn Stephens, was always something she wanted to try to change in her area after being elected earlier this year.
The 25-year-old said: “I knew from the start it was something I wanted to do something about. I’ve been involved in youth politics for a while before I got elected and it’s something that comes up quite often there but it’s more along the lines of gender equality and basic healthcare. But I noticed in the wider area it doesn’t really come up at all.
“In today’s culture where people have less disposable income, it’s becoming more prevalent and I think the stigma surrounding menstrual hygiene has silenced the debate so it’s harder to address the subject because no-one is talking about it.
“So if you’ve got some of the poorer families having a choice between buying food or getting sanitary products sometimes, surely that can’t be right. The taboo of speaking about it has changed our way of thinking.
“To me, naturally, if you’ve got loo roll somewhere then you should have sanitary products. I think that if that if someone tried to take away funding for loo roll there would be uproar about it.
“But then again the subject of sanitary products hasn’t been broached for some reason.”
And Elyn said it was more than just offering sanitary products – it was also helping some girls get the education they deserve.
She said: “Some many girls are missing schools because of this and it’s not just having a detrimental effect on their schooling but also on their health and wellbeing. There’s fines if you miss more than 10 sessions in a term. Well, girls are missing more than this and it’s being dismissed as they were ill.
“That isn’t the case. They were just having a normal bodily function.”
The new initiative would cost RCT council about £70,000 a year – but Plaid Cymru group leader Pauline Jarman thinks it’s “a small price to pay”.
She said: “We see it as being a very necessary provision in this day and age. Some people do miss school because of the affordability of tampons and towels. And 72% of the resident population of RCT live in the most deprived half of Wales so there is an impact on the social wellbeing of young residents as well.
“Reforms and austerity measures have had a severe impact on household incomes. For example, in Maerdy, people are estimated to have an average loss of £1,000 per adult per year because of benefit changes. So there are real pressures on household budgets.
“And 55% of people in poverty are working families.
“We’re hoping we’ll get unanimous support crossparty for this motion. It would be a trailblazer.
“It’s about time we acknowledge that there are people who need this sanitary wear because there’s it’s a natural bodily function – it’s 50% of the community.”
The vote comes as the Scottish Government announced a pilot scheme that will see 1,000 women and girls from low-income families in Aberdeen given free sanitary products to try and tackle “period poverty”.
The six-month run, launched by equalities secretary Angela Constance earlier this week, will see social enterprise company Commuity Food Initiatives North East hand out towels and tampons with the £42,500 needed to back the scheme funded by the Scottish Government.
The initiative will eventually see the feminine hygiene products distributed to a local college, three local secondary schools and other charitable organisations and, if continued, would be would make Scotland the first country in the world to provide free sanitary products to women and girls.