If Toilet Paper Is Essential, So Is a Pad

Why Ukraine Needs Free Period Products in Public Spaces

Marina SukhomlinovaFounder and President of Womafreesm

20 min read 25 Aug 97

There are forms of inequality that survive for generations precisely because they look too ordinary to be recognised as inequality. They live in the details of everyday life, in the assumptions built into buildings, budgets, workplaces, schools and public services, and in the quiet expectation that the person affected will simply anticipate the problem and adapt.

Menstruation has lived in that territory for a very long time.

A public toilet provides water because the human body requires water for hygiene. It provides soap because cleanliness is understood as a public-health requirement. It provides toilet paper because society accepts that some physiological needs arise while a person is away from home and that a functioning public space must make it possible to meet those needs safely and with dignity.

Yet when a woman or girl starts her period unexpectedly in a school, hospital, university, government building, railway station, workplace or public shelter, a different philosophy still applies in most countries. She is expected to have planned for it, carried the right product, found a shop, borrowed from another woman, improvised with toilet paper or left the place she came to study, work, travel, receive treatment or use a public service.

The biological process is entirely ordinary. The infrastructure around it remains incomplete.

That is the contradiction at the centre of a new initiative launched in Ukraine by The World Organization of Women Nations Womafreesm.

In August 2026, Marina Sukhomlinova, Founder and President of The World Organization of Women Nations Womafreesm, submitted a petition to the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine calling for free access to menstrual products to become a mandatory sanitary standard in public institutions. Ukrainian media have already reported on the initiative and its call for period products to be available in schools, medical facilities, government institutions and other public spaces.

Sign the official petition to the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine

The petition concerns pads and tampons, but the principle behind it reaches much further. It asks whether a modern state can genuinely describe its public infrastructure as universal when that infrastructure still treats a predictable physiological reality affecting billions of people as something each individual woman must solve privately.

Menstruation is personal. Access is an infrastructure question.

The World Health Organization estimates that around 2.1 billion women and adolescent girls worldwide menstruate. The World Bank estimates that approximately 500 million women and girls lack access to menstrual products or adequate facilities in which to manage menstruation safely and with dignity. On any given day, more than 300 million women around the world are menstruating.

Those numbers matter, but the deeper problem begins before poverty enters the conversation.

A woman can comfortably afford menstrual products and still find herself without one at the precise moment she needs it. Her period can begin earlier than expected. A pad can fall out of her bag. A tampon can be used sooner than planned. A teenage girl can experience her first period at school. A patient can arrive at hospital without personal belongings. A woman can spend hours in a public shelter during an air raid. A student can be in the middle of an examination. A traveller can be between trains at midnight.

At that moment, the distinction between a "personal product" and public infrastructure becomes much less obvious.

People buy toilet paper for their homes, yet public toilets provide it. People buy soap for their homes, yet hospitals, schools and government buildings provide it. The reason is simple: when a person enters a shared environment, certain basic conditions for sanitation become the responsibility of that environment.

Menstrual products belong inside the same conversation.

This does not mean that the state replaces private household purchasing. It means that a woman who experiences an ordinary physiological need while using a public institution can meet that need without abandoning the activity that brought her there.

That is a far more serious proposition than charity.

It is infrastructure.

The question is no longer whether this can be done

Around the world, governments have already begun answering this question in different ways.

Scotland has gone furthest. The Period Products (Free Provision) (Scotland) Act 2021, which came into force on 15 August 2022, made Scotland the first country in the world to protect in law the right to access free period products for anyone who needs them. Local authorities and education providers have a legal duty to make products available free of charge, in ways that are reasonably convenient and respectful of dignity, with a range of products available.

The philosophical significance of the Scottish model is easy to miss if we reduce it to "free pads".

The law does not begin with a woman proving financial hardship. It begins with need.

That distinction matters enormously because a means-tested system turns a basic physiological need into a declaration of poverty. Universal access treats the product as part of the infrastructure required for a person to move through society with dignity.

Scotland had already invested more than £27 million in free period-product provision across public settings by the time the law came into force. The country also developed tools to help people locate free products and established provision across schools, colleges, universities and wider community settings.

Northern Ireland subsequently became the second place in the world to legislate for universal free provision. Its law explicitly describes period products as essential personal-care items required to meet a normal biological need, and states that they should be available to anyone who requires them regardless of economic status. Free provision under the legislation began in May 2024.

Different jurisdictions have reached the same principle by different routes, and that diversity is useful. Ukraine does not need to copy one national model. It can study what each model reveals.

Canada made the argument almost impossible to avoid

Canada offers one of the clearest precedents because it placed menstrual products directly inside workplace sanitation regulation.

Since 15 December 2023, employers in federally regulated Canadian workplaces have been required to provide pads and tampons free of charge to employees, with products readily available in toilet rooms in workplaces under the employer's control. The Canadian government's own guidance places menstrual products alongside basic sanitation supplies such as toilet paper and soap.

Once the issue is framed that way, a great deal of the cultural confusion disappears.

Nobody asks whether an employee should remember to bring toilet paper to work.

Nobody suggests that a hospital patient should carry soap in case the bathroom runs out.

Nobody interprets a sanitary-waste bin as a special privilege.

These things are understood as part of the cost of operating a functional environment.

The Canadian reform says, in effect, that menstruation belongs inside that same operational reality.

That is an important shift because equality often advances when language becomes more precise. The political question stops being, "Why should someone else pay for a woman's personal products?" and becomes, "What belongs in the minimum sanitary standard of a modern workplace?"

Those are entirely different debates.

What happens when women cannot access what they need?

The consequences are often described as inconvenience because the individual incidents look small. The data show something more serious.

A Scottish baseline study asked people who had struggled to access enough period products how they managed. Among those respondents, 54% used cheaper brands, 37% switched to a different type of product, 30% wore products for longer than usual, 27% used alternatives such as toilet paper, and 11% stopped some of their normal day-to-day activities. The same study found a strong income gradient: 76% of respondents from households earning under £10,000 said they could generally afford enough products, compared with 98% of those in households earning over £40,000.

Every percentage conceals an ordinary human calculation.

Can I stand up without leaking?

Can I finish the lesson?

Can I stay at work?

Can I wait another three hours?

Can I use toilet paper instead?

Can I ask someone?

Can I afford another pack this week?

Each decision appears private when it happens once. When the same decisions repeat across thousands or millions of lives, they become evidence about how a system has been designed.

This distinction sits at the heart of Womafreesm's philosophy of Equal Consideration.

Equal Consideration means that real human differences are incorporated into the design of institutions at the beginning, rather than treated as inconvenient exceptions after harm has already occurred. Equality becomes more accurate when systems account for the realities of different bodies, life stages and conditions instead of assuming that one supposedly neutral model will serve everyone equally.

A public sanitary system that accounts for urination, defecation and handwashing while excluding menstruation represents an incomplete model of the people using it.

The woman has spent generations compensating for that incompleteness herself.

The purpose of policy is to correct the architecture.

New Zealand shows what happens when access becomes part of education

New Zealand has taken a strong school-based approach. Its Ministry of Education reports that an estimated 98% of menstruating students in participating state, state-integrated and charter schools and kura can access period products through the national programme. The programme is designed to provide enough products for a full menstrual cycle rather than merely an occasional emergency supply.

The reasoning is explicitly connected to participation. Students who lack access to products can miss school, sport and cultural activities. Providing products removes one of those barriers.

The New Zealand experience also exposes an issue that should be central to any Ukrainian policy: the physical presence of products does not automatically create genuine access.

A product stored behind a desk may technically be available. A thirteen-year-old girl still has to approach an adult and disclose that she is menstruating.

A Scottish pilot reached a similar conclusion years earlier. When pupils and students were asked how they would prefer to access free products, availability directly in school, college or university toilets was one of the most popular options. Getting them from a member of staff was among the least popular. Researchers identified the need to ask another person as a significant barrier because embarrassment itself can prevent use.

That is why menstrual dignity requires more than procurement.

It requires autonomy of access.

A woman should be able to take what she needs without proving income, explaining her body, asking permission or turning a physiological event into a social interaction.

Wales shows how the idea grows beyond schools

Wales has expanded the principle beyond education.

In 2025, the Welsh Government reported that its £3.2 million Period Dignity Fund was supporting free products in every school and college in Wales, as well as across hundreds of other venues including libraries, leisure centres, food banks, sports clubs and youth hubs.

That expansion matters because menstruation does not occur inside an education policy.

It occurs inside a life.

The same woman who needs access at sixteen in school may need it at twenty-four in a library, at thirty-six in a hospital, at forty-two in a public sports centre and at another moment in a government office.

If the policy recognises the biology, eventually the infrastructure has to follow the person.

England shows how an emergency idea becomes an operating system

England has provided free period products through schools and colleges since 2020, and the scheme continues through the 2025 to 2026 academic year. Government guidance states clearly that periods should never become a barrier to education and that students may need products because they cannot afford them, have forgotten them, run out or started their period unexpectedly.

The current scheme includes pads, tampons, environmentally friendly products, menstrual cups, period underwear and other options. In 2026, the Department for Education launched a new national procurement process to continue free provision through schools and post-16 education providers, evidence that the idea has moved beyond a temporary campaign into a recurring public system.

The historical data that informed the programme are revealing. A 2018 survey cited by the Department for Education found that 14% of female college students and 6% of female school pupils had been unable to access period products during the previous year because of affordability.

The English guidance also contains a subtle but important lesson for public communication. It advises schools to avoid language that makes products sound like assistance reserved for the poor, because stigma itself can deter people from using a service.

That is precisely why "period poverty", while important, should never become the entire frame.

Poverty is one reason a person may need access.

Menstruation is the reason the infrastructure is needed.

France shows the scale of the economic problem for young women

France approached menstrual insecurity through higher education after evidence showed how severely costs were affecting students.

The French Ministry of Higher Education cited research in which 33% of female students said they needed financial assistance to obtain period products, while 13% said they had been forced by lack of money to choose between menstrual products and another essential item. The government set a target of 1,500 free distribution points across university campuses, including university residences and student health services.

That is the economic face of the problem.

When a recurring biological process competes with food, transport or another necessity inside a young woman's budget, the consequences reach beyond hygiene. They affect attendance, concentration, autonomy and the basic ability to participate in education on equal terms.

Catalonia demonstrates that sustainability can be built into access

Catalonia has chosen another route by creating universal free access to reusable menstrual products.

Its La meva regla, les meves regles initiative was designed around approximately 2.5 million women and people who menstruate, with reusable products distributed through pharmacies. The programme offers options including menstrual cups, reusable pads and period underwear, alongside personalised guidance.

Within the first three months of the large-scale roll-out, the Catalan Government reported that almost 400,000 women had already received a free reusable product, with roughly 1,200 products being distributed each day.

This matters because one of the most serious objections to wider public provision concerns environmental impact.

The answer cannot be to force sustainability and menstrual dignity into opposition.

A mature policy can do both. Disposable products remain essential for unexpected, immediate need in public places. Reusable products can be supported through pharmacies, healthcare, education and longer-term programmes. Public procurement can favour lower-impact materials and responsible packaging. Data can guide stock levels and prevent waste.

Environmental intelligence should improve the system, rather than become a reason to preserve an inadequate one.

The arguments against free provision deserve serious answers

A policy becomes stronger when it survives the best objections rather than avoiding them.

Before Canada introduced its workplace requirement, the government conducted a public consultation. Of 42 responses, 57% supported the proposal, 41% opposed it and 2% were neutral. Individual respondents were more sceptical than organisations: among individual submissions, 59% were opposed. Environmental impact was raised by more than 24% of respondents, while cost was one of the major concerns.

Those objections are useful because they expose the questions any Ukrainian legislation would have to answer.

Who pays?

How much will the system cost?

What prevents someone from taking excessive quantities?

How are products replenished?

Which products are included?

How does procurement avoid unnecessary waste?

Who monitors whether products are genuinely available?

Which institutions fall under the obligation?

How does the state distinguish an emergency public-access standard from the expectation that government should supply every person's entire monthly consumption?

These are legitimate questions. They are also design questions.

A functioning state already manages comparable questions for every other public resource. Toilet paper is procured, stocked, monitored and occasionally stolen. Soap dispensers are refilled. Public equipment is damaged. Water is wasted. Buildings have different usage levels. Budgets are constrained.

Infrastructure has always required management.

The possibility of misuse is an argument for better dispensing systems, stock monitoring, procurement rules and evaluation. It is a weak argument for excluding the physiological need itself.

Scotland also teaches us what Ukraine should do better

International experience should never be used as propaganda. A country that learns only from another country's success learns half the lesson.

Recent Scottish government disclosures expose a relevant weakness. In an August 2026 Freedom of Information response, the Scottish Government stated that it does not currently monitor, audit or evaluate how period-product funding is allocated or spent by local authorities, colleges, universities or other public bodies, and that it does not currently collect centralised data on provision under the Act. The response also said that no reviews or evaluations of effectiveness, accessibility, value for money or sustainability had been undertaken since January 2024.

That is precisely the kind of institutional weakness Ukraine should avoid.

A strong Ukrainian model should build measurement into the policy from its first day: cost per location, stock-out rates, patterns of use, product preferences, maintenance burden, waste, user satisfaction, regional differences and the actual accessibility of products.

A law should create a right.

A monitoring system should prove that the right exists outside the text of the law.

Womafreesm's approach is therefore broader than placing boxes of pads in bathrooms. The objective is to create a measurable sanitary standard, with responsibilities, evidence, budgets, implementation criteria and review.

Ukraine has an additional reality: war does not pause the menstrual cycle

For Ukraine, this debate cannot be separated from war.

UNICEF describes menstrual health during the ongoing war as a critical and often overlooked issue. Displacement and damage to infrastructure have disrupted access to essential menstrual-hygiene resources. A 2024 UNICEF and U-Report survey found that 93% of girls said they wanted more information about menstrual hygiene, nearly 39% had witnessed peers being bullied because of menstruation, and 18% had personally experienced menstruation-related bullying. UNICEF also notes that some communities lack toilets with adequate privacy, security and menstrual-hygiene products.

War changes almost every surrounding condition while leaving biology untouched.

A woman can leave her home with minutes of warning. She can lose her income, her pharmacy, her bathroom and her belongings in a single day. She can spend hours in evacuation transport, a transit centre, a hospital corridor or an air-raid shelter. An adolescent girl can be displaced into an unfamiliar school. A family can live in temporary accommodation where access to shops and water is unstable.

The menstrual cycle continues through all of it.

This is why a Ukrainian sanitary standard should include a category that other countries may not need to prioritise in the same way: public shelters, evacuation and transit facilities, temporary accommodation centres and other crisis infrastructure.

For Ukraine, menstrual dignity is also a question of resilience.

Ukrainian society has already shown that this subject belongs in public policy

In April 2026, a separate petition to the Cabinet of Ministers called for menstrual-hygiene products to receive a reduced VAT rate of 7%. It gathered more than 25,000 signatures and received an official government response in May.

That petition addressed the price of menstrual products.

The Womafreesm petition addresses the architecture of access.

The distinction is important.

Lower taxation can make a product more affordable when a woman goes to buy it. A public sanitary standard addresses the moment when she needs a product and cannot access one, regardless of whether the reason is poverty, displacement, an unexpected period, a forgotten bag, a closed shop or simply being inside a public institution when the need arises.

One policy changes the price.

The other changes the environment.

Ukraine needs a serious conversation about both.

What Womafreesm is asking Ukraine to build

The proposal initiated by The World Organization of Women Nations Womafreesm is based on a straightforward principle: basic menstrual products should become part of the sanitary minimum in designated public institutions, with access designed around dignity, privacy and practical need.

The first phase should prioritise schools, colleges and universities, hospitals and healthcare institutions, government and municipal buildings, libraries, public sports facilities, major transport locations, shelters and crisis facilities.

Products should be accessible directly and discreetly. A woman or girl should never have to provide proof of income, explain why she needs a pad, find a designated employee or publicly disclose an intimate biological event.

The standard should provide a sensible range of absorbencies and product types, sanitary disposal facilities, clear restocking responsibilities and transparent procurement rules. Reusable products can form a complementary programme through healthcare, pharmacies, educational institutions or local-government initiatives.

Ukraine should begin with defined pilots, measure actual consumption and operational cost, compare delivery models, consult users and institutions, and then scale the system on evidence.

That is how a social demand becomes an institution.

The real subject of this petition is the architecture of dignity

A pad is a small object.

That is precisely why the issue reveals so much.

Civilisations expose their values through the details they decide to standardise.

When society recognises mobility impairment, stairs stop being the only way into a public building.

When it recognises fire risk, emergency exits become mandatory.

When it recognises infection risk, soap and handwashing facilities become part of sanitation.

When it fully recognises women's bodies as part of the human reality for which public systems are designed, menstrual provision enters the same architecture.

This is the deeper meaning of Equal Consideration.

The World Organization of Women Nations Womafreesm works from a simple premise: a system becomes more accurate when the lives affected by it are fully represented in its design. Women's lived reality must carry institutional weight in the laws, technologies, medical protocols, economic structures and public environments that shape their lives.

Menstrual dignity is one of the clearest places to begin because the contradiction is so visible.

The body has always been real.

The missing element was institutional recognition.

For generations, women learned to compensate for that omission so efficiently that the omission itself became almost invisible. They carried supplies, planned ahead, whispered to strangers in bathrooms, improvised with toilet paper, left school, left work, stayed seated and absorbed the inconvenience into their private lives.

Adaptation can conceal a flawed system for decades.

Progress begins when society asks a different question: why was the woman required to compensate for something public infrastructure could have anticipated all along?

A new sanitary standard can begin in Ukraine

Ukraine does not need to become Scotland, Canada, Wales, England, New Zealand, France or Catalonia.

It can learn from all of them.

From Scotland, it can take the principle of universal access and legal entitlement.

From Canada, it can take the clarity of treating period products as part of sanitation.

From New Zealand, it can take the connection between access and equal participation in education.

From Wales, it can learn how provision expands from schools into the wider community.

From England, it can learn how a public programme becomes a recurring procurement and delivery system.

From France, it can see how period costs affect students' economic choices.

From Catalonia, it can integrate reusable products and environmental responsibility.

From the limitations revealed by Scotland's current monitoring system, it can learn to embed data, audit and evaluation from the outset.

Then Ukraine can add the realities no imported model can provide: war, displacement, shelters, damaged infrastructure and the extraordinary need to build public systems capable of protecting dignity under pressure.

That would be Equal Consideration in practice.

The question before Ukraine is therefore larger than whether a pad should be available free of charge in a public toilet.

The real question is whether women must continue carrying the cost of an infrastructure that was designed without fully accounting for their bodies, or whether the state is ready to recognise that a biological reality shared by millions of its citizens belongs inside the architecture of public life.

A pad costs very little.

The principle behind it is enormous.

A woman should be able to enter a school, hospital, government building or shelter and know that the basic functioning of her body was considered when that space was designed.

That is what dignity looks like when it moves beyond rhetoric and enters the physical world.

Marina Sukhomlinova, Founder and President of The World Organization of Women Nations Womafreesm, has brought that question formally before the Ukrainian government. The petition is now open for public support.

Sign the official Womafreesm petition to the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine

Sources and Further Reading

Ukraine

Global evidence

Scotland

Canada

New Zealand

Wales

Welsh Government: Free period products across schools and public spaces

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