Toilets at schools Free hygiene products for schoolgirls in Bonn
Bonn · It’s a typical stress moment – your period starts, but you're out and about, and you don't have anything to hand. In addition, many can hardly afford the sometimes very expensive hygiene articles. Bonn's main committee now wants to make tampons and pads available free of charge in a pilot project at selected schools.
Who of the female readers hasn't experienced this: You're out and about and suddenly you get your period. This can be particularly stressful if, on top of that, you don't have the necessary hygiene products such as tampons or pads to hand. Girls and younger women are particularly affected because their periods are often irregular.
In Scotland, for example, it was decided last year that female products must be provided free of charge at public institutions such as schools and universities for some time. This is also due to the fact that many girls and women cannot afford hygiene products, some of which are quite expensive. In Bonn, the main committee has now decided to make tampons et cetera available free of charge in a pilot project in the ladies' toilets at selected secondary schools.
The decision by the main committee was prompted by a motion submitted by a Bonn resident to the citizens' committee, which referred to the overall problem and to a resolution passed by the council of the city of Hamm in March. It includes a pilot project for the free provision of feminine hygiene articles in authorities, schools and public institutions. Not only that the sudden onset of menstruation at inopportune times severely restricts and burdens girls and women. Added to this problem is the fact of the price of the hygiene products, which is too high for some. „You can call it period poverty even," it said in the justification of the motion in Hamm. Many girls and women would use cloth scraps or toilet paper in such cases, which poses a health risk. They participate less or not at all in social life, so that one speaks also of social and psychological problems in consequence of the period poverty.
Bonn administration was cautious
The Bonn administration was initially rather cautious. In its first statement to this citizen request it writes: "Independently of the fact that the display of hygiene articles in school toilets is likely to entail massive consequences, which already occur regularly by the not use-fair employment of toilet paper such as improper use, disposal over the sewage system, wanton blockage of the drains, it concerns with the articles in question very individual intimate products, whose selection is likely to orient itself at the personal needs of the female users." In this respect, it was questionable whether there was any demand at all, especially since the situation described by the applicant and appropriate preparation should be part of sex education lessons as well as home education.
The school committee had then decided on an amendment by the council coalition as a recommendation to the main committee to select one secondary pilot school per school type, at which an appropriate number of dispensers for menstrual products would be installed in the sanitary facilities by the SGB and stocked accordingly on a regular basis. CDU and FDP had also demanded that the city should work out a pilot project with the district student council on how the hygiene products could be made available in all municipal school toilets.
The results and experiences of the pilot project should be evaluated after six to twelve months and serve as a basis for the possible expansion of equipping schools with appropriate dispenser units.
The administration also wants to examine the extent to which it would also be possible to provide hygiene articles for girls and women in public toilets, for example in the town hall, and to try this out on a trial basis over a period of six months. After that, it will also report to the Council on its experiences.
Original text: ga
Translation: Mareike Graepel
