Among the most poignant scenes in I, Daniel Blake, Ken Loach’s searing portrait of austerity-ravaged Britain, is when Katie, a struggle single mother, is caught stealing tampons from a supermarket because she can’t afford to pay for them. Katie’s plight brought widespread attention to period poverty: when women and girls can’t afford sanitary products.
Today, one-in-ten women and girls in the UK suffer from period poverty – in London the figure is closer to one in seven.
This means that over 137,700 children in the UK have missed school because of period poverty. If a girl misses school because she is unable to afford menstrual products, cumulatively that puts her behind her male classmates by 145 days.
A survey by organisations Bloody Big Brunch and Hey Girl found that 68 per cent of girls who had experienced period poverty have had to go to school using makeshift menstrual products, including unhygienic materials like toilet paper, newspaper or old clothing.
In Hackney, Gemma Abbott is doing something about these shocking statistics.
Red Box Project, founded by three friends in Portsmouth in 2017, works throughout the UK to fight this issue through providing boxes of donated menstrual products to local schools.
Gemma Abbott came across the project on social media and determined that it was exactly the sort of thing that was needed for women across Hackney.
“With my best friend Elise, we started by covering our nearest school and seeing if we could get enough donations to do that,” she explained. “The community response was just phenomenal, and we realised that we would have more than enough donations to do a lot more than that.”
Red Box Hackney North and Stoke Newington provides boxes to 60 schools throughout the borough, alongside further services in south Hackney. “We have boxes in every school that wants one,” she says.
Schools in Hackney are really struggling.
Abbott describes one secondary school in Hackney which, before it had a Red Box, tried to provide pads and tampons for its students, but had to charge them because their budget was so tight.
“Schools do extraordinary work to try to improve the situation, but they are doing that against this backdrop of extreme budgetary pressures,” Abbott says.
“Parents are having to make impossible decisions about whether to heat their house or feed their children, so menstrual products become very much a secondary issue,” Abbott says.
Statistics published by Free Periods, a campaign to end period poverty with which Abbott is affiliated, suggest that menstrual products cost a woman over £18,000 over the course of her life.
In England, tampons are taxed as “non-essential, luxury items”, while Jaffa Cakes are free from VAT.
The difficulty in accessing menstrual products – which Abbott describes as “utterly essential for health and dignity” – is not just financial; there are social and cultural elements at play too.
“For some girls, they don’t live with someone they can speak to about periods,” she said, “or it is very difficult for them to discuss it because there’s a huge taboo around menstruation.”
In recent months, period poverty has become much more of a national issue, in no small part due to the efforts of Red Box and Free Periods, which is led by 19-year-old activist Amika George.
George launched a campaign to demand that free menstrual products are provided in schools, to ensure that every school child has access to the products they need, raising over £22,000 to crowdfund a broad legal campaign aimed at pushing the government to officially outlaw period poverty.
Yesterday those efforts came to fruition, after Philip Hammond announced in his Spring Statement that free sanitary products will be available in all English secondary schools from September.
This is a huge step forward for campaigners, who feel that up until now the government has been underplaying the problem. The Department for Education has repeatedly pushed back against the campaign, saying that schools should deal with the problem themselves and rejecting suggestions that there is any connection between period poverty and girls missing school.
“It has been extremely frustrating that the Department for Education (DfE) in particular has consistently been pushing back, saying this is an issue that schools should deal with directly, and that they don’t think there’s any connection between period poverty and attendance,” Abbott says. “Clearly they have realised their position is untenable.”
There is still a long way to go to ensure that no girl has to miss school because they cannot afford pads or tampons, and campaigners believe that the gambit does not go far enough.
To truly tackle period poverty, campaigners are now fighting for these free sanitary products to be extended to all schools, including primary schools.
“If you were nine or ten in primary school, you are even more likely to need support,” Abbott argues. “Why should a 13-year-old girl be supported and not a nine-year-old?”
The pendulum appears to be swinging the campaigners’ way.
Hammond has asked the DfE and Penny Mordaunt, the women and equalities minister, to come up with a scheme that would introduce free sanitary products in all secondary schools across England.
In Hackney, help from Westminster can’t come soon enough.
Red Box already provides 32 primary schools with boxes, and schools have been vocal about how important the charity’s support has been.
Justine McDonald, headteacher of Stamford Hill secondary school Our Lady’s High School, said Red Box “has been fantastic”.
“It provides sanitary products for our students, in a quiet and supportive way, allowing them to access them as and when they need, without embarrassment,” she added. “I am delighted that the government are finally starting to address such a fundamental basic female need.”
“The parents are very grateful,” another school wrote to Red Box. “In this time of austerity, one family of five girls spends £30 per month on period supplies. When mums are desperate, they ask for help. You have made such a difference to our girls’ lives.”
