All for All

Research from children's charity Plan International shows that 45 percent of girls in Scotland have had to use alternatives such as toilet paper, socks and newspaper during their periods because they could not afford to buy sanitary products. One survey from grassroots group Women for Independence found that one in five women in Scotland have experienced "period poverty" — a phenomenon in which people struggle to pay for basic sanitary products on a monthly basis, resulting in a negative impact on their hygiene, health, and well-being.

In order to address these issues and "banish the scourge of period poverty," the Scottish government approved a £5.2 million initiative that will make sanitary products free at all schools, colleges and universities — making Scotland the first country in the world to do so.

"In a country as rich as Scotland, it's unacceptable that anyone should struggle to buy basic sanitary products. I am proud that Scotland is taking this world-leading action to fight period poverty," said Communities Secretary Aileen Campbell.

Susannah Lane, Head of Public Affairs at Universities Scotland, agreed that this stigma causes undue emotional and economic burden on Scotland's students. "It is unacceptable that anyone should suffer the embarrassment and distress caused by period poverty so we welcome free sanitary provision being made available in universities across Scotland," she explained.

Socialist Courier fully understands the need for the necessities of life to be free. Our puzzlement is the question of why people do not seek to expand the idea of free tampons to all goods and services. In fact, that is our goal, "to each according to need."  The Socialist Party case for socialism shows convincingly and clearly why and how a world of free access is the only form of society which can permanently ensure a satisfying, fulfilling, secure and happy personal and social life for the whole population of the world. We say that the proposal is not a far-off dream, that everyone is capable of understanding and that 'human nature' is not a barrier. It is a simple, practical and undeniable case for a completely new form of worldwide society—in the interests of all people. But it can not be introduced by dribs and drabs such as free tampons for young women or free bus passes for the elderly.

There is only one way a world of free access can be established. That is the majority of people in each country of the world must come to recognise that advances in science, technology, and knowledge now make a world of free access an immediate, practical and realistic possibility, that the worldwide money, wages, buying and selling form of society, whether run on so-called 'capitalist', 'socialist', 'communist', 'state-capitalist', 'mixed' economy or any other basis, is the root cause of nearly all the problems, personal and social, we face today, and that it is effectively holding back human potential, security, happiness, and well-being, that continuing to engage in reforming or rearranging the money, wages, buying and selling form of society in any way only ever offers temporary and severely limited results and always leaves the cause of the problems—the money, wages, buying and selling society itself—intact. So long as people continue to put faith in reforming and rearranging the present society in various ways a world of free access will never be established.