Menstruation affects a large portion of the Canadian population, almost 9 million women and transgender people between the ages of 10 and 50. It is a subject which cannot be set aside when it raises a problem.
In Canada, and around the world, menstrual poverty drives women to choose between eating and buying their menstrual products, pushes women to steal products, increases their risk of developing toxic shock syndrome, if they keep the same protection too long forces them to miss school or go to work because they cannot protect themselves effectively. Access to sanitary protection is therefore a matter of human rights, dignity, equality between women and men, access to education and women’s health.
In October 2020, a petition related to free feminine hygiene products was tabled in the House of Commons of Canada. A month later, the Minister of Labor promised to come back to this proposal after the COVID-19 crisis. So what about this promise? The initiative is indeed found in the Labor Program Regulatory Plan 2022 to 2024, in which the Canadian government announced its intention to make menstrual pads free for students and women in post-secondary institutions as well as in federal public facilities, such as prisons, immigration detention centers and government buildings. The next question is therefore: when will it actually be implemented? Will Canada follow in Scotland’s footsteps by imposing, within the year, free menstrual protection throughout its territory? To be continued…
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