Good News Series: A Healthcare Win in Catalonia
Catalonia has been the region of a recent victory for those who menstruate, with a new healthcare initiative working to destigmatise and combat period poverty and unsustainable practices
Last week saw Catalonia, Spain, launch a pioneering women’s health initiative, which offers free reusable menstruation products.
Nearly 2.5 million girls, women, nonbinary and trans people who menstruate can receive, free of charge, one pair of underwear, one menstrual cup, and two packages of cloth pads at local pharmacies, in the autonomous community.
The products are attained by the public healthcare system and subsequently disseminated by the 3,000 plus private pharmacies, with the program costing €8.5 million.
The Catalan government stated that the initiative’s, termed “my period, my rules”, purpose was to;
“guarantee the right to menstrual equity”.
To support their argument for the measure, the administration referenced statistics that said 23% of women queried by Catalonia’s public opinion office stated that they had rejected, due to economic reasoning, hygiene items built for a single use.
Furthermore, the regional minister for equality and feminism, Tania Verge, called the program a
“global first”.
This reasoning holds up as, although Scotland’s government legislated in 2020 a guarantee of period products being available to anyone who requires them, for free, the products, in that case, are distributed through colleges, universities, and schools and not pharmacies.
On the other hand, there was more reasoning as to why single-use products were avoided with Verge telling The Associated Press that;
“We are fighting menstrual poverty, which affects one in four women in Catalonia, but is also about gender justice. We are fighting the stereotypes and taboos about menstruation… And… it is about climate justice. We need to reduce the tons of waste generated by single-use menstrual products”.
Such waste, according to the Catalan government, generates, from single-use menstrual hygiene products, 9,000 tons.
Members of the public are reacting positively to the program with Laura Vilarasa, a 29-year-old graphic designer, stating that;
“I am completely in favor of this initiative… It will give women a product that is absolutely necessary to have for zero cost”.
On a national scale, however, Spain is no stranger to advancing feminist legislation with Spain’s national government having passed a law last year granting women with debilitating menstrual pain the right to paid medical leave.
Such a program, the reasoning behind it, and its positive reception work to demonstrate to other regions and nations that combating period stigma, poverty, and waste works to better societies.
That such programs should be rolled out across the world in order to demonstrate, as a society, that such issues are of great importance.
Breaking down taboos one initiative at a time.
