Women spend £18,000 on sanitary products in their life time - via The Briti

The average woman will spend £18,000 on sanitary products in their lifetime - and people are still asking if 'Period Poverty' is real?

According to Plan International UK, 1 in 10 women can't afford to buy menstrual products and over 137,000 young girls miss school days because of period poverty.

In Birmingham, an association of twenty schools are working with a women's charity to provide sanitary products in the schools located in the most deprived areas of the city.

Strategic Manager for Handsworth Association Of Schools, Surrinder Bains said: "The Handsworth Association Of Schools is a charity that is made up of twenty schools , including primary and secondary , predominatary in the locality of Handsworth , and been in exostence since 1999 .

"We are working in partnership with the inspirational Neelam Heera and Cysters on the peroid poverty campaign .

"A presentation by Neelam to our schools recently has led to us working together on the distribution of sanitary products to the schools in greatest need and to work closely with pastoral leads in the schools .

"The area of Handsworth has considerable poverty and our young people deserve the best opportunity to achieve both educational and well being outcomes .

"A number of schools are already engaged and young people are planning to write to corporates to support as part of their social action and social justice agenda. 

"This is a public health issue and a priority for our schools . I have worked with Neelam for many years and seen the campaign grow from strength to strength and pleased to work together with Cysters and our schools."

Menstrual items such as tampons and pads can cost women up to £13 every month.

Women in the UK are still subject to pay the ‘tampon tax’, a 5% charge on sanitary products seen as a ‘luxury product’ even though men’s razors (also a luxury product) are not taxed.

Cysters was founded in 2015 to combat issues and inequalities in women's reproductive and mental health care.

Founder, Neelam Heera has campaigned for many aspects of women's health care to be changed including attending temples to get more marginalised women to attend their smear tests and has now began to focus on women of a low income who don't have equal access to these essential products. 

She said: "Our Cysters is a project to ensure that all women have equal access to menstrual products.

"We felt that as a charity who's focusing on reproductive and mental well-being that we had a platform to assist women in need.

"It is important for us to support marginalised women as all women are our sisters."