Credit: Kirsten Colligan
Deputy Editor
The Scottish Government has announced that it is putting £4m towards furthering an initiative to provide free sanitary products throughout the country. In a bid to end period poverty in Scotland, free sanitary products have already been provided in many schools, colleges and universities since August 2018. Now the government intends to widen the distribution of these products further, making them available in even more public places, such as leisure centres and libraries. Councils will decide specific locations for distribution in order to best meet local demand.
The decision to expand this project was announced after its initial success. The initiative began to provide women from low income households in Aberdeen access to free sanitary products since 2017. Following this, the scheme expanded, dedicating £5.2m to providing a similar service to students in Scotland. This latest decision demonstrates the government’s latest push to combat “period poverty”, which refers the the inaccessibility of sanitary products due to financial limitations.
It is hoped that the expansion of this initiative will aid people who were previously unable to afford sanitary products, and were forced to resort to unhygienic, unsafe or undignified alternatives.
