New York has once again made history. This time they’ve done it by passing a law that promises access to menstrual products in public schools, homeless shelters and correctional facilities. They already beat the UK to passing an marriage equality act in 2011 when we slogged behind, passing one in 2013. And 2016 is the year of the period. New York ditched the tampon tax in May, and while George Osbourne has pledged to us that we too would ditch the tampon tax, that promise has still not materialised.
Public Schools
We’ve all had to do the odd stuff of toilet paper in our pants but imagine that being your everyday reality, every month. The LA Times reported that one out of five 12-17 year olds live in poverty which means they have difficulty affording sanitary towels and tampons. Not having access or having a limited amount and not changing them frequently enough does not only affect young women’s dignity it can seriously damage their health and possibly lead to toxic shock syndrome.
Michelle Obama’s campaign ‘Let Girls Learn’ argued these same points as well as pointing out that it could cause girls to miss school and disrupt their entire education. For example, in developing countries young women often end up dropping out of education entirely. According to ‘Let Girls Learn’ 62 million girls aren’t in school all over the world. New York is taking the globally leading step to empower these young women throughout their education.
Homeless Shelters
Women tend to be the minority amongst the UK’s homeless population with only '26% being clients of homelessness services'. However, they are highly vulnerable because often they have problematic mental health, substance dependencies and experiences of sexual abuse. Crisis conducted interviews that revealed 20% became homeless because they were fleeing violence from somebody they knew, 70% of them breaking from a partner.
They need protection from the unsanitary conditions of having to wear blood soaked clothes for extended periods of time. They are literally left ‘Bleeding in the streets’. New York’s homeless women will now be able to avoid this indignity.
Correctional Facilities
In the latest season of Orange Is The New Black, we see the women of Litchfield scrambling for sanitary pads and tampons this isn't just a fictional TV problem.
The Correctional Association of New York said ‘a lack of menstrual products is a top reproductive crises’ and that one New York prison ‘made women show used sanitary pads in a bag to prove they needed more’. These women may be in prison but they are still people and should be treated as such.
New York is now leading the way for menstrual freedom, way ahead of the rest of the USA, which still has 25 states taxing tampons, and the rest of the world. Hopefully, campaigns in the UK can put enough weight down and make our government do the same thing.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.