A third of girls miss school because they dont have access to period products. It’s time to be proactive

Hang out with children, even of a young age, and you’ll know that they have an acute sense of justice and what they perceive to be right and wrong. From the size of a cake slice (in comparison to others) to who said what that was wrong to whom. Justice and its pursuit are hard wired in to us.

We’re made in the image of God who loves justice, who speaks against justice throughout the bible and calls us into a life pursuing the likeness in which we are created.

I wonder how many of us pursue justice with the same passion as we have got older (beyond ‘just’ the size of a cake slice) or how much has diminished with age and busyness?

So, as I hear stories repeated across the UK, of girls skipping school because of a lack of access to period products, it hits that part of me that’s wired for justice.

Research shows that a third of girls miss school because of a lack of understanding or adequate access to period products. Some even report that it’s easier to get a free condom than a tampon in school.

But it runs deeper than that – it’s not just a lack of access in schools that’s problematic but a fear of bleeding through to school uniform which may then be visible (and highlighted) to others, and the shame attached to that.

And these fears are not unfounded.