Adulting begins in real terms once you start paying the bills. Suddenly you realise your favourite restaurant is ridiculously expensive and instant noodles become your dinner. The word ‘Sale’ gives you a hard time to decide whether you need that dress or pay the house rent. Welcome to adulthood! Nothing in this world is for free. Working adult life is mostly about separating your wants from your needs. But then you realise there’s another added expense for every month because you are women. A visit from aunt flo! While talking about periods is still considered to be a taboo in ‘few countries’, Scotland has made a progressive remark by becoming the first country in the world to provide menstrual products for free to all women. Finally, someone listened!
Earlier, free menstrual products were only available to students of high schools, colleges and universities in Scotland.
According to Reuters, the bill passed on Tuesday by the Scottish parliament makes sure that sanitary pads and tampons are available free all across the country. As per the legislation, common public places such as community centres, pharmacies and youth clubs will now provide menstrual products free of cost to all women of Scotland. This new policy is said to cost an estimated 24.1 million pounds and passed in the parliament with 112 votes in favour, zero against it.
Currently, the UK government charges 5% tax on sanitary products. About 10% women in the UK can’t afford sanitary products. But this new law is being hoped to bring a change across countries to end the ‘period poverty’.
There still exist a large number of countries who charge onerous amount for sanitary products, including separate ‘tampon taxes’ and categorises them into ‘luxury items’. Only if women had the luxury to skip it every month!
We applaud the Scottish government for this much-needed move.
Photo credit: Google
