Imagine: you really need to use the bathroom, but instead of being able to calmly make your way to the toilet, you’re forced to walk around for fifteen minutes in the hopes of finding a store that sells toilet paper. It’s self-evident that toilet paper is just available, Because it’s a basic necessity. But for period products, this is not as self-evident. These products are also basic necessities, but for a long time, the University of Amsterdam (UvA) and other universities in the Netherlands did not see them this way. The facilitation of this basic necessity to students is going very slowly, but luckily, UvA has now placed 46 extra dispensers with free period products. They are located by the bathrooms on the ground floor of every UvA-building. This step in the right direction was possible thanks to students who campaigned for years and continuously put pressure on UvA.
Period poverty
Period poverty is a nearly invisible problem in the Netherlands. For menstruating people, not only is it an attack on the body to suffer blood loss every month; the mental and financial impact is also larger than is recognised.1 Research report ‘CODE ROOD’ (2024) by Neighborhood Feminists shows that period poverty remains a persistent issue. Especially in Amsterdam, there are a lot of people who can not afford to buy period products: even though this percentage has decreased 13% between 2022 and 2024 due to a campaign by the municipality of Amsterdam, the percentage is still higher than the national average. In the study, more than 24% of participants claimed that it is getting increasingly hard to afford period products, and 21% even had to resort to unsafe or ineffective alternatives, like toilet paper or pieces of fabric. The consequences of period poverty are even so far-reaching, that one in five participants that can not afford period products, have to call in sick to school or work out of necessity.2 As an example, Scotland passed a law that required government agencies and educational institutions to offer free period products, because of situations like the ones mentioned.3 This law came to be partly through campaigns at schools and universities.4
Preventing period poverty
It goes to show that period poverty is not unsolvable: it has little to do with ‘not enough money’, but with willingness to take action. We are happy that UvA is seeing this now and is making a first move to fight this problem. But this did not come about without a fight. The Central Student Council (CSR) has been fighting to get free period products in bathrooms since 2020. The initiative started as a result of a survey from student party 020 about menstruating at UvA. This survey showed that 70% of students have once been surprised by their period on campus without having products on hand.5 Despite this, the Executive Board (CvB) rejected a proposal from the CSR to make period products available in 2021. The ‘excuse’ for this was that offering these products could be seen as a free reward for employees, who were using these bathrooms as well. This was said to not be possible, tax-wise.6
Campaign
After a lot of pressure from the CSR, the CvB started a pilot in 2022 with selling period products in vending machines. They also agreed to research what it would cost to offer free period products in all bathrooms.7 The campaign fell silent in 2023 while everyone was awaiting the results of the pilot. At that time, we trusted the board to take this issue seriously. Unfortunately, this turned out to not be the case. Because of this, ASVA and the CSR started another petition. This petition was signed no less than 1228 times by students, professors, student associations, faculties and organizations fighting for menstrual equality. On the 13th of february 2024, during an event in collaboration with volunteer organizations Periodic and Neighborhood Feminists, this petition was handed over to CvB-vice chair Jan Lintsen to mark the importance of this basic necessity. Lintsen then stated that the current sale in vending machines was ‘proportional’, according to him, but after some protest, he shared that there were plans to place six dispensers with free products across all campuses. An important development, to make these products freely available, but unfortunately, these six dispensers were often empty. On top of that, there weren’t enough of them; it wasn’t even one dispenser per campus, let alone one per building.
After this, on June 13th 2024, a demonstration was held at UvA. Students and professors talked about their own experiences with a lack of period products and asked Jan Lintsen critical questions about the way the board had handled the situation. According to the people asking the questions, the unwillingness to provide period products is contributing to the stigma around periods. All while the university has the power to take on an exemplary role in the normalization of this topic. Jan Lintsen denied the existence of a stigma based on his own experience: ‘I don’t experience this when I buy tampons in the supermarket for my family’. This anecdote showed how little insight Lintsen had about the experience of menstruating individuals and how this can differ from person to person, from family to family and from group to group.
Conclusion
It goes without saying that a lot of hard work went into making period products available at UvA and this hard work is finally paying off. The CSR has been entering conversations with the CvB since the start of this year and has managed to finally have more dispensers with free period products installed this summer. A plan has even been developed to make sure that the dispensers are full at all times. UvA is making moves in the right direction. It is absurd that we even had to negotiate this long for basic necessities. We hope that, in the future, every bathroom will be provided with period products. As the biggest university in the Netherlands, UvA has the power to follow Scotland and incite large-scale changes regarding accessible period products. Even though we for sure are happy with the new dispensers, we know that the fight is not over yet.
Sources
1 Editie NL. ‘Heftig bloedverlies tijdens de menstruatie: ‘Ik kan een colafles per dag vullen’’. RTL Nieuws.
(30 oktober 2019): 8 pars. [nieuwsartikel], geraadpleegd op 9 april 2025. Beschikbaar via
https://www.rtl.nl/editienl/artikel/4901621/heftig-bloedverlies-menstruatie-campagne-bloedserieus-
colafles-dag.
2 Neighbourhood Feminists. ‘CODE ROOD: Een gids voor het aanpakken van menstruatiearmoede.
Kwantitatief onderzoek naar menstruatiearmoede in Nederland 2024’. (2024). [onderzoeksrapport].
Beschikbaar via https://www.neighborhoodfeminists.com/nl/code-rood-2024-landelijk-onderzoek-en-
aanbevolen-acties/.
3 NOS Nieuws. ‘Gratis tampons en maandverband nu verplicht in Schotland’. (15 augustus 2022): 3 pars.
[nieuwsartikel], geraadpleegd op 12 april 2025. Beschikbaar via https://nos.nl/artikel/2440655-gratis-
tampons-en-maandverband-nu-verplicht-in-schotland.
4 McCole, D. & Jamal, S. ‘Just How Effective is Scotland’s Free Period Product Policy?’. Greater
Govanhill. (11 augustus 2023): 8 pars. [nieuwsartikel], geraadpleegd op 12 april 2025. Beschikbaar via
https://www.greatergovanhill.com/latest/just-how-effective-is-scotlands-free-period-product-policy.
5 Lont, T. ‘Studenten willen gratis maandverband en tampons op de campus’. Folia. (21 februari 2022): 4
pars. [nieuwsartikel], geraadpleegd op 12 april 2025. Beschikbaar via
https://www.folia.nl/actueel/150450/studenten-willen-gratis-maandverband-en-tampons-op-de-campus.
6 Idem.
7 Lont, T. ‘Menstruatieproducten niet gratis, waarschijnlijk wel goedkoop in UvA-automaten’. Folia. (30
maart 2022): 4 pars. [nieuwsartikel], geraadpleegd op 12 april 2025. Beschikbaar via
https://www.folia.nl/actueel/151073/menstruatieproducten-niet-gratis-waarschijnlijk-wel-goedkoop-in-uva-
automaten.
Authors
Chaima Nbigui
Emma van Elburg
Ide Hiemstra
Noor van de Wal
Violet Willems
