The law adopted in 2020 will come into force. It obliges local authorities, as well as schools and universities, to provide them on request.
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From Monday August 15, tampons and sanitary pads will be available free of charge to all women in Scotland. The law against menstrual precariousness will come into effect.
Under this text voted in 2020 by the deputies of the British nation, local authorities and schools and universities will be legally obliged to provide periodic protection free of charge. A mobile phone application, PickMyPeriod, was launched (in English) in order to find the nearest distribution points.
The Scottish government, led by the separatists, presents its law as a first in the world and claims to have been followed on this path by New Zealand or South Korea. In France, sanitary protection is offered free of charge to female students.
“Providing access to free sanitary protection is fundamental in terms of equality and dignity”underlined the Minister for Social Justice Shona Robison, quoted in a press release. “It is even more important at a time when people are having to make difficult choices due to the cost of living crisis”he added, as inflation nears 10% in the UK and soaring energy bills hit the poorest hard.
The Scottish government has already been offering sanitary pads and tampons in schools and universities since 2018. The movement against menstrual poverty in the nation was carried in particular by a group of high school girls, “Lady Business”. The young girls had filled toilet dispensers with hygienic products at their school in central Scotland, before launching a campaign, speaking out in other schools and organizing a rally outside the Scottish Parliament.
More than half of teenage girls (52%) have missed school due to their periods according to a May 2019 survey of 1,000 teenage girls in the UK.