When Taiwanese Vivi Lin got her first period, she didn’t know what it was. She is the founder of the organization With Red, which works to break the taboo and stigma about menstruation in Taiwan and to fight menstrual poverty. It was the experience of getting her first period that started her activist work. – What really made me curious about this was when I told my parents, especially my mother, that I had had my first period. She tried to teach me how to use a pad without saying the word “menstruation”. That curiosity led me to become a menstrual activist, because I wanted to understand the reason behind the taboo. She says that menstruation is generally associated with stigma in Taiwan. Nevertheless, the country’s Ministry of Education has decided that pupils in schools throughout the country should have access to free menstrual products such as pads and tampons. – It is a major milestone for our movement, says Vivi Lin over a video connection from Scotland to the World’s Best News. She founded With Red in 2019 and has since worked as a menstrual activist partly in Taiwan and partly from Scotland, where she studies at Edinburgh University. Not a perfect measure Vivi Lin is happy about the new measure of free menstrual products in schools in Taiwan – but she has also fought for it. She says that the organization has been a driving force behind the new initiative. – The original proposal was free menstrual products for everyone, she says. Instead, the initiative ended up including free menstrual products for all students in the equivalent of primary and secondary schools. But at the universities, it is only for those students who experience menstrual poverty, i.e. students who cannot afford menstrual products. – We don’t think it’s perfect, so we’re still trying to push for everyone to have access to menstrual products, regardless of whether they experience poverty or not. Because sometimes it’s just a matter of getting your period all of a sudden, and therefore needing to only use the toilets. In addition to giving students access to free menstrual products, drop-off points for pads and tampons are also being created at 10 non-educational locations, such as health centres, a number of museums and libraries. Menstrual poverty can go beyond school According to Taiwan News, an English-language online media, the country’s Prime Minister Chen Chien-jen has stated in connection with the new initiative that the abolition of menstrual poverty is part of promoting equality. According to the United Nations Population Fund, UNFPA, menstrual poverty means not being able to afford menstrual products such as pads and tampons, but it also concerns, for example, painkillers and underwear. Menstrual poverty is not only found in low-income countries, but also in richer countries. For example, a report from Plan International UK shows that 1 in 10 girls in the UK cannot afford menstrual products. Menstrual poverty can also have several ripple effects for both education and income, because a lack of menstrual products can mean that the menstruating person cannot go to school or work. But with the new initiative in Taiwan, children and young people will not lack access to the important products. Vivi Lin believes that the prime minister of the country is talking about menstrual poverty at all. – I think, without a doubt, that it is worth celebrating. And I also think it is a milestone, because it means that the decision-makers are aware of the problem, she says. She says that it was her organization that initially translated the definition of menstrual poverty into Mandarin four years ago. – No one believed that menstrual poverty existed in Taiwan. I believe that the situation is very similar to that faced by menstrual activists in the rest of the world, including in the Nordic countries such as Norway, Finland and Denmark, she says. The elephant in the room Vivi Lin says that children and young people in Taiwan are mostly not taught or learn about menstruation – not even at school, although there are teaching materials about it. The teachers lack the resources and the knowledge to teach about it, and some simply do not dare to bring up the subject because it is embarrassing to talk about. Therefore, Vivi Lin and her organization still have a lot of work to do. – It’s not just about the menstrual products, because free products are only the first step towards both putting an end to menstrual poverty and stigma around menstruation, she says. Precisely because menstruation is taboo in Taiwan, Vivi Lin and her organization have also founded a menstruation museum in the middle of the capital, Taipei. – It’s like the elephant in the room, says Vivi Lin about the way menstruation is perceived in Taiwan. The museum is created to point to the elephant.
ttn-70
Despite the taboo around menstruation: There are now free pads and tampons in schools in Taiwan
