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B**p Paying for Tampons

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30 March 2017

By Alex Khalil

Seriously. Viagra isn’t taxed and tampons are. The heck, people?

It has been revealed that girls miss or skip classes due to not being able to afford sanitary items like tampons and pads. It has also been shown that it is primarily low-income families that are affected.

The Education Secretary, when asked in Parliament, said she would “look carefully” at the issue.

More than 15,000 people have signed a petition calling for schools to hand out free sanitary items, a scheme which is already in use in a number of American universities and high schools. The petition was carried out by the campaign group Fourth Wave, saying that many teenagers feel too embarrassed to get help.

Earlier in the month, police officer Sara Barrie said to the Independent:

“Many of these kids are from low-income families. There’s often more than one child, and families really are struggling with finances, with these products often coming far down the priority line.”

Some teachers were even paying for sanitary products out of their own pockets for their students. Which sucks.

Just so we’re clear, b**p the fact that they’re classed as a luxury item. And the fact they have to pay for them too sucks. Because it’s a basic personal hygiene thing, and thousands of young girls are uncomfortable and missing school because of the price of them.

Thankfully, a charity that set up Kenyan schools with free tampons and pad packs is now working its way through Yorkshire and Leeds with the same initiative.

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