The Issue
According to period.org on a study, a quarter of teens and a third of adults struggle to afford period products stopping them from attending school or going to work.
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This issue not only impacts the health of others but also the social and professional lives of many who have to spend almost a week dealing with embarrassment and overall halt to their lives because they do not have access to the hygiene products they need.
In places like Nigeria, women have to resort to “well-worn rags [they] used as sanitary pads, then lay them out to dry in hidden spots” said in a New York Times article titled The Shame That Keeps Millions of Girls Out of School.
The Shame that Keep Millions of Girls Out of School. New York Times.
PODCAST
Cassie Burtis and Toni Peters, creators of the Reproductive Hygiene Product Drive and Pass out at the ASU School of Social Work participate in a discussion on the negatives of period poverty and how we can help combat it with initiatives and overall shifts in attitude toward menstrual cycles.
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The issue impacts almost 16.9 million people living in period poverty and products continue to be taxed making them more expensive an inaccessible as a health necessity. ​
This issue does not discriminate as the stress women and girls go through each month to either prevent shame from a potential accident or the inability to get the help they need to support themselves through their menstrual cycles.
Toni Peters, a social worker specializing in foster care and a professor at the ASU’s School of Social Work shares her perspective on working with young girls growing up in the foster care system having to deal with their period.
​ "I had several incidents where my foster youth weren't comfortable having that exchange with staff,” Peters said. “Then they ended up rolling up toilet paper and using that too for their own needs.”
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She also adds on to the lack of education for young girls victim to period poverty who do not have mothers to teach them what to do or how to take care of their cycles in a healthy way.
Peters said, “People say, well, just ask, but given the stigma associated, it's not exactly comfortable to go and announce that you have now started your period and that you need these hygiene products.”