All schools in New Zealand will be provided with free products for female students starting in June, confirmed Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.
Directors and poverty groups have been calling for change for years, saying that the poverty of the period means that some girls ended up missing school during their periods because they could not afford sanitary products to manage them hygienically.
The directors of underprivileged areas of the country also reported that the students resorted to the use of newspapers, toilet paper and telephone directories to control menstruation.
“Young people should not lose their education because of something that is a normal part of life for half the population,” said Ardern on Tuesday when announcing the launch, which follows a pilot program in some poor schools last year.
“Providing free products at school is a way for the government to directly address poverty, help increase school attendance and have a positive impact on children’s well-being,” she said.
Speaking at Fairfield College in Hamilton, the prime minister said students from across the country told her that seasonal products should be made available to anyone who needs them, when they need them.
Jan Tinetti, the Minister for Women and Associate Minister for Education, said the pilot program identified a myriad of problems with term management in school settings, including embarrassment, stigma, skipping classes, being “caught” without products, cost, lack of knowledge how to use products and discomfort.
“Pilot feedback noted that providing options was important, both in terms of the types of products and how they are accessed,” said Tinetti.
“The students also said that they wanted information about periods, period products and other practical elements of managing their period, how to track and know when and who to ask for help.”
According to Dignity NZ, a non-governmental organization that advocates an end to the period of poverty, 95,000 young people aged 9 to 18 can stay home during menstruation because they cannot afford health products.
Miranda Hitchings, co-founder of Dignity, said: “It is a fantastic investment by our government. However, this is only the beginning. The poverty of the period does not only affect students. It is a subset of poverty, and many other groups, such as those who are homeless and with a loss of income, deeply feel the implications of the lack of access to products ”.
The results of the Youth Survey19 showed that 12% of students from the 9th to the 13th year who menstruated reported difficulty in accessing health products, while approximately one in 12 students reported missing school because they could not buy the products.
The University of Otago found that girls who experience poverty during the period face lifelong implications “for their health, emotional development, education and career prospects”.
The labor coalition government aims to cut child poverty in half in a decade, and Ardern said that while this task has become more complex due to the implications of Covid-19, it was important to invest in programs that would make an “immediate difference” in the lives of needy girls across the country.