News Center- One in ten girls in Turkey cannot go to school during their monthly period because they cannot buy sanitary pads, says a company specializing in feminine hygiene products. That company launched a donation campaign and distributed four million sanitary pads only to schools around Turkey. After the outbreak of Covid-19, the women have become poor even more in Turkey and they have begun to not buy feminine hygiene products one by one. The women have to remove feminine hygiene products from their shopping lists in order to pay the house rent and to buy essential nutrients.

The Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Muş MP Gülistan Kılıç Koçyiğit has drawn attention to this issue and proposed a bill of law to provide free feminine hygiene products.

Women are not supported

The bill of law has been submitted to the Presidency of the Assembly under the title “The Law Proposal Amending to Amending the Social Insurance and General Health Insurance Act”. We talk to Gülistan Kılıç Koçyiğit about the bill of law she has proposed.  Gülistan Kılıç Koçyiğit states that social poverty has increased after the outbreak of the pandemic. Pointing out that women have difficulties in accessing basic foodstuffs, she says, “After the outbreak of the pandemic, some compensatory mechanisms to minimalize poverty have been formed. However, there is no mechanism to support women in Turkey. Social services haven’t been given to citizens as a basic and constitutional right. This causes a conclusion that deepens both inequalities and poverty. We know very well that currently unemployed women, domestic female workers, female farmworkers, and refugee women actually have difficulties in accessing these basic hygiene products. Because the priority of many women is to pay the house rent and to buy essential nutrients.  The basic feminine hygiene products become a luxury for them. They have difficulties in buying and accessing them. They use traditional methods and this can cause many health problems. The state has to provide these products for free. This is the necessity and responsibility of a social state and constitutional state.”

The HDP MP also talks about the conditions of women in prison and she says, “People have been held in prisons for arbitrary reasons for many years. Most of them have low-income families. You put people in prison; these people cannot earn money in prison and don’t have any income. How can they buy hygiene products for themselves? Being held in prison shouldn’t prevent them from having basic hygiene products. Nappies, baby formulas should be free for children in prison and feminine hygiene products such as sanitary pads, tampons should be free for women in prison.”