Items tagged “periodpoverty”

Engender Parliamentary Briefing: Period Products (Free Provision) (Scotland) Bill

Engender is clear that menstrual care is a women’s health issue, and that barriers to accessing essential products have a negative impact on women and girls’ access to education, work, leisure activities and their wellbeing. The Period Products (Free Provision) (Scotland) Bill establishes a principle of universality, and a minimum legal duty to establish an ‘opt-in’ universal scheme for access to period products in very broad terms, which must be seen as a floor rather than a ceiling. Engender categorically supports this aspiration.

This parliamentary briefing sets our why we are calling on MSPs to support the Bill at Stage One, and agree the principle that everyone who needs access to products to manage their period has a right to access them in Scotland on a free and universal basis.

Date of publication: February 2020.

Engender submission of evidence to the Scottish Parliament Local Government and Communities Committee Call for Evidence on the Period Products (Free Provision) (Scotland) Bill

This document is a submission of written evidence to the Scottish Parliament Local Government and Communities Committee Call for Evidence on the Period Products (Free Provision) (Scotland) Bill. Menstruation is painful, inconvenient and expensive, with over 20% of all women experiencing such severe menstrual cramps that it interferes with their daily activities. The cost of period products remains significant and undermines women’s already poorer economic position. In 2017, Engender convened a roundtable discussion to gain a better understanding of period poverty in Scotland. This session was attended by organisations working around education, homelessness, poverty, and women’s equality and rights. This response draws on some of this discussion as well as additional materials and analysis.

Date of publication: November 2019.

Engender Response to the Public Consultation on the Proposed Sanitary Products (Free Provision) (Scotland) Bill

Engender welcomes the opportunity to respond to Monica Lennon MSP consultation titled ‘Ending Period Poverty’, which proposes to introduce a Bill in the Scottish Parliament which would provide women and girls with access to free menstrual products.

Date of publication: December 2017.

Summary of 'Period Poverty' in Scotland Roundtable

In June 2017 Engender held a roundtable discussion to gain a better understanding of ’period poverty’ in Scotland: the issue of women not having adequate access to sanitary products. The event brought together a small number of specialists and practitioners from the women’s sector, education and homelessness to get an overview of what information and evidence currently exists on the scale and nature of the problem, and where we can act as individual organisations and in collaboration to build the evidence base for specific interventions.

Date of publication: August 2017.