Becoming a mother within the Montenegrin healthcare system is not a uniform or predictable process, and for most women, it is a traumatic experience that remains unshared and suppressed, overshadowed by the "new life" in whose service their exhausted and silenced bodies are deployed.
Feminists volunteering in the areas affected by the earthquakes in Turkey denounce the fact that women’s basic needs like sanitary pads are being treated like secondary issues, as usually seen in times of crisis. Apart from basic material needs, security concerns and lack of socio-psychological support amount to worrying levels.
Interview with Alessandra Cedri, an Italian artisan producing a line of fabric sanitary pads and pantyliners through her microenterprise Lalepap. Washable up to 200 times, these reusable pads are a hit with Gen Z girls.
For this 8th of March, Medfeminiswiya journalists have analyzed the price of sanitary products against the economic reality of the most precarious women in their respective countries.
How many menstrual cycles does a woman have on average in her life? How many tampons/pads does she use over almost four decades? In which country are sanitary pads and tampons available for free?
In Montenegro, 25% of menstruating women report that they cannot afford basic period hygiene products. These products are also still subject to 21% VAT...
In France, 2 million women face difficulties in accessing period hygiene products, for lack of financial means. 7% of students suffer menstrual precariousness, and 1 in 10 will have to invent makeshift pads...
For Italian women in precarious economic conditions, it is becoming increasingly difficult to afford these expenses that come along with their periods, every four or five weeks.
It is estimated that only 30% of Moroccan women have access to sanitary products. This period poverty mainly affects women in rural areas.
According to a 2021 report by NGO "Pariter", almost 12% of women in Croatia cannot afford to change tampons or pads as much as they would like to...
Medfeminiswiya is a feminist network that brings together women journalists working in the fields of media and content production in the Mediterranean region.
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