IMPORTANT CONTRIBUTION
Youth Member for Hinchinbrook Alice Bosanquet has helped dozens of women in need, donating hundreds of dollars worth of sanitary products to the North Queensland Domestic Violence Resource Service.
As a Youth Member, Alice, 17, is on the Committee for Child Safety and Women, and she connected with charity Share the Dignity for its community engagement project through research into improving conditions for sex workers.
Share the Dignity gives sanitary products to homeless women and fights for domestic violence victims, and has also made progress in destigmatising periods and women’s health matters.
“Share the Dignity is about giving women dignity, women in poverty especially and women suffering from domestic violence,” Alice said.
“They usually don’t have access or can’t afford the bare essentials of sanitary products, and my committee agreed to collect and donate sanitary pads to Share the Dignity.
“I’m donating the pads to the NQDVRS to give the women in the Townsville community that tiny shred of dignity.”
Alice said it was common for sex workers, the subject of her committee’s Youth Bill, to seek help from organisations such as the service.
“It is time to pay our respects to the women in the Townsville community,” she said.
“It’s time to pay our respects to the women who have suffered for us, to our mothers, to our sisters, to our cousins, for the women who are suffering as I speak.”
The Year 12 Townsville Grammar student collected more than $300 worth of pads, equalling more than 100 packets, to be distributed by the service to women in need.
“This charitable organisation really fitted what our committee was looking at,” Alice said.
“We’ve talked about the negative stigma associated with sex workers and we’ve called out that it’s a
‘taboo’ topic.
“People are saying it’s a bit inappropriate for us to do, but the truth is nothing is inappropriate. We’re all people, we’re all women.”
Federal Member for Herbert Phillip Thompson and State Member for Hinchinbrook Nick Dametto contributed to the donation.