Engender produces a range of publications including reports about specific subjects, parliamentary briefings, responses to consultations, and our annual reports. These are all available online, and we can also send printed copies of selected reports. Contact us to arrange this.
In 2017 Engender launched the Gender Matters Roadmap, which sets out the steps needed to move closer to women's equality in Scotland by 2030.
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.
Filename: Engender-Parliamentary-Briefing-Free-Period-Products-Scotland-Bill-21022020.pdf | File size: 195KB | Tags: health, faireconomy, periodpovertyThis 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.
Filename: Engender-submission-of-evidence-to-the-Local-Government-and-Communities-Committee-Call-for-Evidence-on-the-Period-Products-05-11-2019.pdf | File size: 234KB | Tags: periodpovertyEngender 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.
Filename: Engender-response-to-the-consultation-on-the-Proposed-Sanitary-Products-Free-Provision-Scotland-Bill.pdf | File size: 499KB | Tags: periodpovertyIn 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.
Filename: Engender-Roundtable-Summary-Period-Poverty-June-2017.pdf | File size: 660KB | Tags: periodpovertyTo join our email list, simply enter your email address below.