From now on, general and vocational educational institutions in Latvia will have to provide medium-absorption menstrual hygiene packages for free, the government decided on Tuesday.
If additional funding is found, the need for repeated amendments to the regulations will be assessed in order to establish that hygiene packages are provided in free access to all visitors of the educational institution, the Ministry of Health indicates.
According to preliminary calculations, the provision of menstrual hygiene products in all educational institutions could cost an average of EUR 1 886 per year, the institution predicts. At the same time, the ministry draws attention to the fact that the situation in different educational institutions and municipalities may be different.
The location of the menstrual hygiene items will be determined by the appropriate authority. If the packages are not in the toilet, the educational institution will have to ensure that the learners are informed about the location of the goods and the possibilities of receiving them, the ministry reports. At the choice of the institution, hygiene products will be handed out by an employee of the educational institution or in the free access to the toilet of the educational institution.
Currently, it is planned to provide hygiene products according to the flexible scenario, which provides for at least a minimum amount of packages and allows educational institutions to provide a greater range and availability of hygiene products per girl, if it is financed by the educational institution from its own internal resources.
To date, 36% of schools or 199 educational institutions provide free hygiene packages to their students, according to the ministry.
According to the information provided by the Ministry of Education and Science, some educational institutions already provide hygiene packages on demand, thus they are used only in crisis situations and their consumption in educational institutions is very low. Currently, the proposed approach does not have an impact on the budget of the institution and the municipality, and it can be ensured by re-planning the range of goods to be provided to the educational institution, says the ministry.
In some schools, such a decision on the possibility of contingency support for teenagers at school for several years is provided after a decision taken jointly by the school board, parents’ association, school self-government or student council, respectively, providing funding for this, using the money of the foundation or receiving donations. Representatives of several schools have indicated that such assistance is provided to students on their own initiative from their own funding, as well as certifying that they have justified the absence of lessons if the student, not knowing where to turn for help, has decided not to attend the lessons.
In order to estimate the amount of resources needed, educational institutions that already provide such hygiene products were surveyed. The said educational institutions pointed out that in a school with an average of 1 000 pupils, of which about half or almost 500 are girls, about 10-15 packages are currently issued per month, or on average one package of hygienic packages.
According to publicly available information, there are currently about 77 785 girls aged 11 to 19 in Latvia, who study in a total of 668 educational institutions, of which 67 004 girls in general education institutions, 935 in special education institutions, 9 190 in vocational basic and secondary education institutions, as well as 656 in colleges. According to calculations from the ministry, 77 785 girls would need about 1 556 – 2 357 packages per month.
Similarly, the Ministry of Education and Science has calculated the needs to ensure the availability of free packages for all schoolgirls in full for all monthly days of the school year. In this scenario, it is planned to provide 15 packages per girl per month for a period of ten months.
According to a study by Procter & Gamble in 2019 on the availability of hygiene packages in Latvia, at least 15% of girls, or one in six girls, have been late for school because they were not able to purchase hygiene packages due to family financial circumstances. A total of 303 young women in the 18-25 age group participated in the survey.