Women’s sanitary products would be provided in every school and building under its purview, the Ministry of Education said yesterday, after legislators urged the government to offer better services to women, who, according to new data, spend about NT$100,000 on sanitary products throughout their lives.
The announcement came after Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators Liu Shih-fang (劉世芳), Chang Liao Wan-chien (張廖萬堅), Lai Pin-yu (賴品妤), Lin Yi-chin (林宜瑾), Chen Hsiu-pao (陳秀寶), Fan Yun (范雲) and Ho Hsin-chun (何欣純) yesterday told a meeting of the legislature’s Education and Culture Committee that the ministry should provide the products in all public schools in Taiwan.
Minister of Education Pan Wen-chung (潘文忠) said that the ministry “fully supports the proposal” and would put it into practice from the next academic year.
Photo: Lin Hsiao-yun, Taipei Times
“Period poverty” has become an important part of women’s rights campaigns around the globe, Chang Liao said, adding that buying sanitary products is a burden for underprivileged families.
Teenage girls tend to feel overwhelmed when they have their first period, which usually occurs between the age of 10 and 16, he said.
Schools in the UK began to provide period products in 2018, which can help those in need, as well as familiarize students with the products and help them understand menstruation as something normal, he said.
Only some schools in Taipei, Tainan, Kaohsiung, New Taipei City and Hsinchu provide menstrual pads or have similar policies, he said.
However the availability is limited, and underprivileged families and families living in remote areas are not taken care of, he added.
The ministry should review the implementation and budgets of the programs adopted by schools within two months, he said.
The ministry should also consult experts, local governments and school representatives to evaluate the feasibility of providing free period products, and compile a report on the findings within four months, he added.
Fan said that implementing a nationwide program based on the findings would help students from low-income households.
Ho said that a nationwide program should also include supplementary measures, such as offering students guidance about related physiological phenomena.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS