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Celerity

(42,643 posts)
Fri Feb 28, 2020, 11:53 AM Feb 2020

Scotland Set to Be First Country to Provide Free Pads and Tampons

Its Parliament approved a bill that would make Scotland the first country to end “period poverty.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/world/europe/scotland-pads-tampons.html

LONDON — Scotland is poised to become the first country to end “period poverty” by providing free sanitary products to women of all ages in the country. Free menstrual products are already available to students in high schools, colleges and universities in Scotland. And a bill passed by the Scottish Parliament on Tuesday will make pads and tampons free across the board.

Monica Lennon, the lawmaker who submitted the draft proposal of the bill, said she was thrilled that it had attracted support across Scotland, including from civic groups and “individuals who have had their own lived experience of period poverty and know what it is like not to have access to products when they need them.” Although the bill passed with 112 votes in favor, none against and one abstention, some lawmakers warned that the legislation faces a few hurdles before becoming law, though they were regarded as surmountable. One of those is a yearly cost that the government puts at about $31 million.

Tampons are taxed at 5 percent in Britain — a levy that the British government has been unable to abolish because of European Union rules that class sanitary products as “luxury” products. The bloc has pledged to remove all taxes on menstruation products by 2022.

About 62 million pounds, or $80 million, collected in taxes on sales of sanitary products in Britain has been diverted to women’s charities since 2015, the minister for civil society, Mims Davies, said last year. Nearly 10 percent of girls in Britain have been unable to afford period products, and 19 percent have resorted to using substitutes like rags, newspapers and toilet paper because of the high cost, according to research by a girls rights charity, Plan International UK.

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Scotland Set to Be First Country to Provide Free Pads and Tampons (Original Post) Celerity Feb 2020 OP
This wonderful, I hope other countries follow. dewsgirl Feb 2020 #1
One of our local community college supplies free sanitary products. Coventina Feb 2020 #2
Now THIS is a good use of government funds. Croney Feb 2020 #3
?!? EU says pads, tampons are 'luxury' items?!? That's INSANE bobbieinok Feb 2020 #4

Coventina

(26,844 posts)
2. One of our local community college supplies free sanitary products.
Fri Feb 28, 2020, 11:56 AM
Feb 2020

Believe it or not, one of the extreme right-wing crazies on the governing board (a woman) is offended by this.

Croney

(4,646 posts)
3. Now THIS is a good use of government funds.
Fri Feb 28, 2020, 12:00 PM
Feb 2020

I was poor growing up, and sometimes had to make do with whatever I could find.

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