State Leaders Talk Period Poverty On World Menstrual Hygiene Day – CT News Junkie

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CT News Junkie
Connecticut News from your locally owned & operated news source at the state Capitol since 2005.
HARTFORD, CT — Roughly 41.9% or about 2 in 5 American women have reported struggles to afford menstrual products, with many of them citing it as a reason for missing school or work.
That statistic, cited by Jennifer Tolman, president and chief operating officer at the nonprofit agency Dignity Grows, was among the topics that a group of women legislators and state leaders, including Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz, state Rep. Kate Farrar, D-West Hartford, and others discussed Thursday on World Menstrual Hygiene Day.
“This day is about whether millions of women and girls in this country are able to participate in daily life,” said Tolman. The inability to afford menstrual products “is a mainstream reality, affecting millions of women,” she said.
In recent years, Connecticut has made strides to eliminate what is often referred to as “period poverty,” or a widespread lack of access to menstrual hygiene products. In 2022 and 2023, the state legislature passed bills eliminating taxes on menstrual products and requiring public schools and shelters to provide menstrual products in restrooms.
Period poverty exists because too many households are operating with no margin for additional expenses, Tolman said. She added that the products are not optional.
“They are required month after month, year after year, decade after decade.”
Bysiewicz expressed gratitude toward organizations like Dignity Grows for leading the charge against period poverty in Connecticut.
“Ending period poverty is a health issue, an education issue, an economic issue and a human rights issue,” said Bysciewicz. “So when we remove barriers to menstrual hygiene products, we help people stay in school, stay at work and stay engaged in their community.”
Founded in 2019, Dignity Grows is a Hartford-based non-profit organization that aims to provide free menstrual products to women, conduct research on menstrual hygiene and end the stigma on period poverty.
“Progress creates responsibility,” said Tolman. “At Dignity Grows, we know that until every woman has reliable access to menstrual products in her home, our work continues.”
“We got here as a state because we had years of advocacy, especially by some of our youngest residents,” said Farrar who said she was particularly inspired by her conversations with high school students when pushing the legislation through the legislature.
Farrar said that $2 million in state funding has been set aside to ensure statewide adherence to the legislation but that additional lengths still need to be taken to encourage the legislation’s implementation.
“At the heart of this, it truly is about having access to products that are required for our biology,” said Farrar. “Without them, there are barriers to education, to economic security and true impacts to our public health.”