Discrimination, Immigration, Women, Young People

Spotlight on:
Uncovering Period Poverty

A letter from our former editor

“

When period poverty first started to hit the headlines back in 2017, it seemed like half the country was shocked it even happened. But we had a feeling it was part of something much bigger. It might not have seemed the most obvious focus for a human rights charity, but we knew it was something that tied directly into our human rights – those experiencing period poverty were at risk of having their rights to dignity, education, and health violated. Our initial week-long campaign focused on both the scale of the problem and telling the stories of those affected, all accompanied by striking hand-drawn illustrations from Skye Baker and in-house videos. We revealed that tens of thousands of women were relying on food banks, after ringing hundreds of them across the country, and spoke to inspiring campaigners trying to tackle the problem. Since then, we've continued to keep the focus on period poverty, and you can see a selection of our work below.

Jem Collins, former Editor of EachOther

Thoughts from our contributors

Gabby Edlin

"Sanitary products need to free for those who need them. Boys need to have education too. We live in a structurally sexist society and women’s needs inevitably get tossed to the bottom of the pile.”

Hayley Smith

“Poor nutrition, poor diet, abuse, they all factor into bad, irregular periods, which makes this even more of an issue for homeless women. If you have irregular periods, you don’t know how long you’re going to come on, you don’t know how heavy it’s going to be, you can’t predict it. I have irregular periods, but I have products to help me manage that. If you’re homeless, you don’t have that.”

Amika George

"When girls are missing school routinely, for a month, every single month, that’s really stopping us from moving forward as a society. People aren’t being treated equally and girls are being robbed of their dignity. It can have a real impact on their self-esteem and confidence. I think it’s ridiculous we that we only ever talk about periods when we’re saying they’re disgusting.”