The federal government released, this Monday (19), the criteria for free distribution of pads, which should serve about 24 million people in socially vulnerable conditions. According to an interministerial ordinance, the target audience is people enrolled in the Single Registry, homeless or poor, enrolled in federal, state and municipal public schools and who belong to low-income families, are in the penal system or are serving socio-educational measures. The pads will be distributed in Primary Health Care establishments, public schools, units of the Unified Social Assistance System, prisons and institutions for compliance with socio-educational measures. Training courses are planned for public agents to clarify about menstrual dignity, in addition to advertising campaigns. The purchase of absorbents must take into account the quality criteria provided by the National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa). It will be up to the Ministry of Health to estimate the average use of pad units and the menstrual cycle. The Ministry of Health points out that thousands of people do not have access to sanitary pads in the country “and, as a result, girls stop attending classes out of shame, and women use inappropriate ways to contain the flow, such as toilet paper and even breadcrumbs”. The project, which provided for the free distribution of pads to low-income public school students and to women living on the streets or in socially vulnerable situations, was approved in the Senate in September 2021 and went on to be approved by the President. However, then-president Jair Bolsonaro vetoed parts of the project. The government at the time argued that the project was against the public interest. In March of this year, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva edited the decree that regulates Law nº 14.214/21 and established the Program for the Protection and Promotion of Menstrual Health. The objective of the program is to combat the lack of access to hygiene products and other items necessary for the period of menstruation or the lack of resources that enable their acquisition, offer a guarantee of basic health care and develop means for the inclusion of women in actions and menstrual health protection programs. In the same month, the National Congress overrode Jair Bolsonaro’s veto on the distribution of pads.
Agência Brasil
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