Meeting of the Parliament 25 February 2020 [Draft]
Not yet.
The Tories are giving very mixed signals as to whether they support the general principles of the bill, and I was astonished at some of the arguments that Graham Simpson used—I have never known Jackson Carlaw to be ambushed by anyone or anything.
I want to talk about breaking the taboo of periods, not just dealing with their cost to women and girls. Mr Simpson says that women should not feel embarrassed, but women on all sides of the chamber will tell him that not being able to talk about their health has been an issue for generations of women. I will say something about that.
We might disagree, and I accept that the committee must scrutinise the bill closely, but I hope that the tone of the Tories’ contribution to the debate will change. If it did not, that would be a tragedy. I whole-heartedly welcome the change of heart that the Government has made in supporting the bill—Aileen Campbell, who gave the reasons for that today, should be congratulated—albeit that we will discuss the bill’s serious and legitimate implications as we go forward.
It is a shock to every young girl when she finds out that her body is going to change as she enters puberty and adulthood—even more so when she finds out that her period is going to arrive every month. That is life altering for most women. A new form of pain and discomfort arrives in the form of the blood and moods, and, although everyone is different, there are many associated health issues. Whether women have endometriosis, get pregnant or are not pregnant, there are implications for women’s health.
In many countries, young women are not told about their periods and are frightened when they have one for the first time. Sheh was 15 when she bled for the first time. She thought that she was sick and confided in her aunt, who told Sheh’s mother. Her mother said, “You are a woman now.” She lives in a small village near Delhi, in India, and she now works in a sanitary pad factory in that small village. A documentary has been made about the campaign in which students crowdfunded for a pad-making machine.
The taboo around periods still exists around the world. In the rest of India, periods are still a taboo topic and, in some countries, menstruating women are still considered to be impure and are barred from entering religious places. They are often also excluded from social events. In Nepal, nearly eight out of 10 girls in the Mid-Western region still sleep in dangerous outdoor menstruation huts during their periods, and, when women are on their periods, it is forbidden for them to take part in a range of everyday activities. We are talking about a global issue of equality. I should say that, after a string of high-profile deaths, the practice in Nepal was criminalised in 2018.
The need for the bill in Scotland is apparent. All the written submissions to the committee recognised that period poverty is an issue in Scotland. It is an issue of poverty.