Free pads and frank discussion: Bangkok schools tackle ‘period poverty’

Since founding her own brand of period pads and liners in 2020, Thai entrepreneur Varangtip Satchatippavarn has given away thousands of products to those in need, including to a low-income community hit by a fire in Bangkok and Myanmar refugees along Thailand’s northern border.

“Public help under these situations often comes in the form of food or clothing, but hardly anybody thinks about period pads,” she says. 

Ms. Varangtip is part of a movement in Thailand aiming to address the lack of access to menstrual products and education, a public health problem known as “period poverty.”

As more countries experiment with providing free menstrual products, period poverty remains an under-addressed issue in Thailand, where many members of low-income communities consider necessities like pads a luxury. Stigma around periods has limited research on the impact of period poverty, and national policies seeking to improve access to menstrual products have foundered. But successful local projects, such as the targeted distribution of free pads in Bangkok schools, prove that eradicating period poverty can be “economically viable,” says Ms. Varangtip.

“Thailand’s health welfare includes free condoms and birth control pills. I’m sure providing free period pads can be done,” she says.

Addressing needs

Think Forward Center, a think tank backed by political party Move Forward, says that throughout the estimated 40 years that a woman has her period, she could spend as much as 84,000 baht ($2,400) on menstrual products. That’s a heavy burden in a country where the minimum wage is about $10 a day.

The group proposes the government eradicate the 7% value-added tax on all female hygiene products, and subsidize them instead. Other countries have gone even further: In 2020, Scotland provided free tampons and sanitary pads for everyone, followed by New Zealand, which started the giveaways in all schools in 2021.

Although many parties and women’s rights groups spoke out about period poverty ahead of Thailand’s 2023 election, there’s been little progress since, in part because of pervasive taboos around menstruation in the Buddhist-majority country. 

Locally, however, there has been some action. Last year, the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration started providing free period pads to teen and preteen students in seven schools across the capital, becoming the first public organization to do so. The BMA distributed more than 220,000 period pads to 1,885 students in the first few months, and it aims to expand the program to cover as many as 28,000 students across dozens of schools in the future.

Wat Phai Ngoen Chotinaram elementary school, which lies just a short walk from a low-income community where many students live, now provides young girls 15 period pads a month. 

“The program helps a lot because some students with financial constraints previously had to wear one period pad for the whole day, with the help of tissue paper to prevent from soaking, which is unhygienic,” says school principal Saipin Lomphong. “Now parents don’t have to pay more stipend for children to buy period pads anymore.”

Kwankhao, an 11-year-old student who asked to withhold her last name for privacy, says her family gives her a daily allowance of 60 baht, or $1.70. She used to spend 80 baht on pads, but now she joins dozens of other girls who go to the school’s meeting hall each month to receive period pads for free.

There, teachers have a chance to check in and advise students on how to treat period cramps and properly dispose of used pads. Teachers also encourage them to share this knowledge with their friends.

“Some friends who don’t have a period yet or don’t live with female relatives … are very curious about periods,” says Kwankhao.

Creating new norms

As part of its period pad program, the BMA has reached out to women’s rights campaigners to talk in schools about menstruation and sex education. Ms. Varangtip was recently invited to talk to 600 female students.

“Questions I got asked included whether they can drink soda or eat spicy dishes, or if they can have a cold shower during their period,” she says. 

“I think male students should attend too,” she adds, “but it’s up to the school.”

Such conversations are needed outside of Bangkok as well. 

Wannakanok Pohitaedaoh, president of the Association for Children and Youth for Peace in the Deep South, works with about 200 low-income communities in Thailand’s southernmost provinces. Her organization sometimes receives donations, but period pads are rare.

“Many families work as laborers in rubber farms or shrimp farms, and are paid just 100 baht a day,” she says. “Youths in the area, as they cannot afford sanitary products, use period pads only at night, and a piece of cloth in the daytime.”

While she would love to see Thailand provide free sanitary products nationwide, Ms. Wannakanok doesn’t see that happening any time soon.

“The country needs someone in the ministerial position to be really sensitive about woman and child issues,” she says.

Ms. Varangtip, whose brand offers promotional rates for offices and schools that provide free period products, hopes that smaller-scale programs will help move the ball forward.

“We aim to create a new norm here,” she says. “Providing sanitary products is an organization’s own welfare and well-being, but sometimes decision-makers are male and don’t see it as a pressing issue. … So we still have a long way to go.”