North Rhine-Westphalia: Free tampons and pads at Düsseldorf schools

Düsseldorf (dpa / lnw) - Tampons and pads will soon be given away free of charge at secondary schools in Düsseldorf.

North Rhine-Westphalia: Free tampons and pads at Düsseldorf schools

Düsseldorf (dpa / lnw) - Tampons and pads will soon be given away free of charge at secondary schools in Düsseldorf. The school board of the city council decided on Tuesday. The city will raise the money for this.

The offer had been tested in a pilot phase at 13 Düsseldorf schools since November 2021. 70 percent of the schools assessed the experience as fundamentally positive and advocated a continuation. If all 62 secondary schools in Düsseldorf take part, expenditure of around 16,500 euros per year is expected. The average cost in the pilot phase was 180 euros per school.

Scotland legislated free access to tampons and pads on Monday. A law came into force there that obliges educational institutions and municipal facilities to make such products available free of charge. According to its own information, Scotland is the first country in the world to have such a law.

A majority of the German population also supports free menstrual products in public buildings in Germany. In a representative survey by the opinion research institute YouGov, 66 percent of those questioned were in favor of giving menstruators free access to items such as tampons or pads. 18 percent reject this, 16 percent of those questioned made no statement.