The Ministry of Health informed today (8) that it will ensure the supply of pads by the Unified Health System (SUS), focusing on the population that is below the poverty line. The President of the Republic, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, signed this Wednesday a decree that creates the Program for the Protection and Promotion of Menstrual Dignity. According to the ministry, around 8 million people will benefit from the initiative, which provides for an investment of R$ 418 million per year. The new policy follows the criteria of the Bolsa Família Program, including low-income students enrolled in public schools, homeless people or people of extreme social vulnerability. People in situations of deprivation of liberty and who comply with socio-educational measures will also be assisted. The ministry adds that the program, aimed at all people who menstruate, will reach cisgender women, trans men, transmasculine people, non-binary and intersex people. According to Ana Nery Lima, specialist in gender and inclusion at the NGO Plan International Brasil, which promotes children’s rights and equality for girls, it is urgent to think about actions and public policies that guarantee that girls, women and people who menstruate have access conditions worthy of managing your menstrual cycle. “That’s why measures like the one announced today are so important to guarantee the distribution of pads to people who live with menstrual poverty, so that they can, at least, live with dignity”, she said. “Menstrual dignity is also about human dignity. When people access safe and effective facilities and supplies to manage their menstrual hygiene, they are able to manage their menstruation with dignity,” she concluded. Public Ministry This week, the Federal Public Ministry (MPF) reinforced a request in court for the Union to present a plan to distribute sanitary pads to low-income public school students, women in situations of extreme social vulnerability, prisoners and young people in conflict with the law. Distribution is guaranteed by Federal Law 14,214 of 2021, but the previous government was against the policy. The text, approved by the Senate in September 2021, was sanctioned by the then President of the Republic, Jair Bolsonaro, who, however, vetoed the free distribution of pads. The presidential veto was overturned in March of the following year by the National Congress. In the same month, Bolsonaro decided to regulate distribution. In November, the Ministry of Health launched the Program for the Protection and Promotion of Menstrual Health, with the promise of serving 4 million women. In October, the non-governmental organization (NGO) Criola had filed a lawsuit in the Federal Court, asking the federal government to present, within 15 days, the plans for distributing the pads. “The idea was to develop this policy as quickly as possible, with the urgency [de] that she needed, since the people who will benefit from this policy are people in vulnerable situations”, recalled the general coordinator of the NGO Criola, Lúcia Xavier. *Andreia Verdelio, from Agência Brasil, and Carolina Pessôa, reporter from Rádio Nacional collaborated *Article amended at 2:55 pm to include an expert position on the subject.
Agência Brasil
Folha Nobre - Desde 2013 - ©