Girls cannot learn their way out of period poverty

‍

By Aneeta Prem London 15 April 2026

The Government has relaunched its Women’s Health Strategy for England, with a new £1 million menstrual education programme, alongside wider promises on pain relief, referral pathways and faster diagnosis. Ministers say they want to stop women being ignored, dismissed or talked over in healthcare. It is a significant announcement, and it follows a March warning from the Women and Equalities Committee that menstrual health was not being sufficiently prioritised within wider NHS reform.

But this still risks missing the point.

Over Easter, I took a call from a girl who told me that when she is at school she can collect free pads from the office. When her period started again during the holidays, she had nothing at home. She did not ask. In her world, periods were treated with shame and disgust. She also told me she was too frightened to use tampons because she believed they might affect her hymen and that she needed to be seen as a virgin.

That is not a knowledge gap. It is a power gap.

A lesson in school cannot protect a girl who cannot safely ask for sanitary products in her own home.

The medical facts are clear. The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists states that the appearance of the hymen is not a reliable indicator of intercourse and that there is no known examination that can prove a history of vaginal intercourse. In other words, the myth is powerful, but it is still a myth.

That matters because policy language is often too comfortable. It talks about awareness and access, but not enough about what happens in private, where shame, silence and control sit outside the reach of public services.

Ministers are right to say girls need better menstrual education. But education is not the same as dignity. It is not the same as access. And it is certainly not the same as freedom.

The Government already knows that products remain a barrier. England’s period product scheme for schools and colleges is continuing through the 2025 to 2026 academic year. That is important. It shows ministers recognise that some pupils still cannot get what they need. Yet support that exists in school does not necessarily follow a girl home.

That is the real weakness in this debate.

A girl who can collect free pads in school but has nothing to use during the holidays has not been fully protected. A girl who believes using a tampon could affect how her virginity is judged is not making a free choice about her own body. A girl who is too afraid to ask for help is not facing a simple public-health messaging problem.

She was not just short of products. She was short of freedom.

There is current evidence that this is not an isolated problem. ActionAid UK reported this month that 11% of women and people who menstruate had struggled to afford period products for themselves or a dependent in the past year. It described period poverty not only as lack of products, but also as the inability to manage menstruation with dignity because of stigma and sanction.

That is why the £1 million figure matters.

If ministers want this programme to carry weight, they should explain exactly what it will change for girls whose real barriers are not ignorance but poverty, shame and fear. What happens when school is closed? What happens when home is not a safe place to ask? What happens when a girl is managing not only a period, but the expectations placed on her body?

These are not side issues. They go to the centre of whether the policy works.

The renewed strategy may help some girls recognise the signs of an unhealthy period. That is useful. But it will do far less for the girl whose problem is immediate and basic: she has started bleeding, she has nothing to use, and she does not feel able to ask for help.

Girls cannot learn their way out of period poverty.

Until policy confronts the reality of control, silence and shame, it will continue to treat the surface of the problem and leave the hardest part untouched.

‍