Thank you.
Thanks for having me at the committee and for the invitation to present on this really important issue.
My name is Sussanne Skidmore. My pronouns are she and her. I'm calling in from the unceded and traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Wauthuth peoples.
For the past five years I've been a volunteer co-chair for the United Way's Period Promise campaign with the United Way here in British Columbia. I'm also the president of the BC Federation of Labour.
United Way British Columbia began working on menstrual equity and period poverty in 2016 and launched the first of its annual campaigns to collect and distribute products to non-profits and charities in 2017. Since then, we have been able to distribute more than 2.5 million menstrual products to hundreds of community organizations.
In our first collection, we managed to gather and distribute 30,000 menstrual products. We were convinced that this mountain of tampons, pads, cups, liners and underwear was going to provide meaningful long-term support to our community. We donated 15,000 products to an organization providing crucial supports in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. We were thanked by the organization's leadership, who told us, “This will last for three months.” We learned very quickly that this is a bigger issue than we thought.
Since then, our collection campaign has grown substantially. In 2023, we hope to gather and distribute as many as 700,000 products to more than 100 community organizations across British Columbia. To accomplish this, we are leaning on key partners like Tampax and Always, Pacific Blue Cross, Aisle, joni and countless others, but we've learned that a campaign of any size won't provide people living in precarity with the reliable access they deserve. As a result, we've also been doing important work in three other areas.
First, we developed a policy agreement that organizations of any shape can sign on to. By joining the commitment, employers, unions, community organizations, grassroots collectives, school districts, post-secondary institutions and municipalities have committed to providing no-cost, stigma-free access to people who menstruate. We've shared this with the United Ways across the country, and more than 65 organizations have signed on.
Second, we've built collectives to help people with lived and living experience, grassroots activists, academics and community organizations work together to build awareness and shape solutions. We have one that is focused on work being done in British Columbia and another one that coordinates efforts to advocate to the federal government. We're excited to see that many of these partners have been invited to participate in these hearings.
Third, we've done a lot of research into the issue of period poverty in British Columbia. It has shown us that around 90% of the community organizations that we provide products to are asked for free products more than once a week, and more than 90% are reliant on public donations of physical product to support their needs.
The largest portion of our data is from research we conducted with the Government of British Columbia, and it was published in 2021 as the “Period Promise Research Project Final Report”. We found that nearly 51% of people who menstruate in British Columbia have struggled to purchase product for themselves at some point, that those who struggled to purchase product for their dependents had a 98% likelihood of struggling to purchase products for themselves as well, and that just over 30% of the respondents said they didn't know where to purchase products they could afford.
We also saw how common missing out on some aspect of community is for those who don't have access to products. Accessing menstrual products is therefore a gateway for accessing community. More than 18% of respondents had missed school, 22% had missed work, 29% had missed out on community events, and 27% had missed out on social activities. All of those numbers increased for people with lower family incomes, indigenous folks, people living with disabilities and immigrants or refugees.
We also found that having access to free products in community helped 75% of respondents be more engaged in their community and improved overall wellness. Here's one testimony we collected during our research that proves it:
By having a workplace that supports menstrual hygiene and provides access to free menstrual products, I find myself more at ease when it comes to having my period. As someone with a heavy flow and abnormal cycle, I'd always be anxious about whether I remembered to bring enough menstrual products with me. For the unlucky days where I didn't have any [or] enough on me, I'd have to resort to folding enough toilet paper to create a makeshift pad. I'd spend the rest of the day worrying with thoughts running through my head like, “Am I leaking? Did it seep through?”.... Free and accessible menstrual products provide me with the freedom to continue with my day and the confidence in knowing that I have one less thing to worry about.
Today, due to the cost of living and an inflation crisis that we are all experiencing across this country, more people are struggling to afford basic needs. Work on increasing access to free menstrual products and reducing menstrual stigma is urgently needed. This means providing good-quality products; providing a variety of options; providing easy, regular and reliable access; and building supports for the most vulnerable in our community.
Thank you for inviting us to be a part of today’s conversation, and I'm happy to take any questions, should you have any.
Thank you.