Menstrual Justice for All – about the counters
UK
A recent nationally representative survey conducted by Irise International, Freedom for Girls, Cysters, Bloody Good Period, and InKind Direct, revealed that girls in the UK are missing an average of 1.7 days of school each year due to a lack of access to period products and other support. We’ve combined this with ONS population data from 2021 (the latest available) and the UK government’s own estimates of the proportion of girls who menstruate at different ages to calculate the number of days school missed over an entire school year. This equates to over 3.5 million days being lost due to lack of access to products and support each year, or an estimated 57,338 days missed during WD2023 in the UK alone.
No one in the UK should miss school because they can’t access the products or support they need to manage their period.
Uganda
Irise’s work in Uganda has shown that over the course of a year, 1 school drop-out can be prevented for every 90 girls receiving the right support during and around menstruation. We’ve combined this with population census and school enrolment data to estimate that there are 22,653 preventable school drop-outs per year due to inadequate support for menstruation, or 357 during WD 2023