The Menstruation Matters campaign has taken Ontario by storm. Student groups in universities across the province are demanding free menstrual products be stocked in university bathrooms and other accessible areas throughout campuses.
For students, this is a great initiative, especially in emergencies when the blood is flowing and you’ve got nothing in close proximity to cork it.
But, will it be possible to implement such a program on a larger, national scale?
Scotland recently passed a bill making menstrual periods free to all. Scotland has the financial ability to pursue such a policy, but a lot of countries in the world will not be able to afford such a policy, or will simply refuse to undertake it because it may not be a priority. People with uteruses are seldom a nation’s priority.
What if, in an ideal world, colonizers could make reparations for the damages they inflicted on their colonies by providing them with free menstrual products?
Settled colonies like Canada, the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand will probably be able to accommodate a budget allotment to free sanitary products for all. But independent, unsettled colonies like Nigeria, Ivory Coast and scores of others around the world may not have budgets or social structures that will be able and willing to invest in such a scheme.
In this event, can the budget for free menstrual products be provided by colonizers to their ex-colonies?
The logistics of providing free sanitary products to those who cannot afford it would be a complicated and nearly impossible process to carry out efficiently.
In the case of many unsettled colonies, a significant portion of the population that needs pads cannot actually afford them or any other “modern” sanitary product, for that matter. Menstrual products should be made free across the ex-colonies and the countries that colonized them should pay for it, as a form of reparation.
Some may argue a financial reparation made to ex-colonies is not feasible. While a moral reparation such as a governmental apology has some sentimental value, those who face generational trauma will not gain any tangible benefit from a moral reparation.
Colonizers benefitted in the years they spent suppressing cultures, taking innocent lives, and forcing people to conform to their ideals of “civilization.”
All it requires is an international wire transfer and a sheet of paper signed by two national parties, agreeing to an arrangement which ensures the provision of free sanitary products. Like all international policies, the road will be bumpy at the start. But no policy is successful from the get-go.
This is my utopia: living in a world where colonizers regret the actions of their ancestors and make reparations without having to be begged to do it, without colonies having to fight for it, and without turning their noses up and looking the other way. Maybe there will be such a utopia, one day.
File photo.
