(3BL Media/Justmeans) – Last week, UK news reported that the charity Freedom4Girls had discovered school girls in West Yorkshire had no alternative but to stuff toilet paper down their pants to stop themselves from bleeding through their clothes at school. They couldn’t afford sanitary products and some were skipping school as a result. Freedom4Girls is a UK-based organisation that is focused on work in Kenya on this issue. However, since learning about these girls, the Charity has had sent some sample packs to the school and launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise money for research into the scale of the issue in the UK.

This is a sad and shocking revelation from an advanced economy. After the story made news, the UK’s Education Secretary Justine Greening promised to "look carefully" at the issue, in light of suggestions that tampons and sanitary towels could be given free to British pupils from low-income families. Since then, more than 15,000 people have signed a petition calling for schools to give out free tampons and towels, an initiative that has been adopted by a number of American universities and secondary schools.