Free Sanitary Products on Campus

Female students at The University of Birmingham will have access to free sanitary products after a successful campaign by a student union officer.

Daisy Lindlar, the sabbatical Guild representation and resources officer, who has since been crowned the ‘Queen of Tampons’ decided to take action in her own hands following the Parliamentary ‘tampon tax’ debate this week. Which rejected the proposed reduction in the current five per cent VAT rate by MPs 305 to 287 votes.

Writing in a blog post for The Huffington Post, Lindlar described how Parliament is "dominated by people without wombs."

According to Lindlar one of the most frustrating aspects of the "tampon tax" is the fact that it classess sanitary products as "non-essential, luxury items" she says, "This puts them in the same tax bracket as alcoholic jellies, crocodile meat and edible sugar flowers."

Most women would agree that periods are most definitely not a luxury or something you have any choice at all with.

The university’s Guild of Students took to Facebook to describe how periods can be ‘expensive’, adding: “To start with, there’s the cost of tampons or towels. On top of this, anyone with a uterus will also be familiar with the associated cost of paracetamol, pyjamas, underwear, bed sheets and the odd sweet treat to get you through the month. Sometimes there's even the loss of work-time and class or lecture attendance to add to the bill.”

Encouraging open dialogue over a topic which, she said, is still taboo, Lindlar added: “They're seen as an embarrassment, a source of shame, and something we should keep quiet about. This needs to stop.”

Now, in order to ease the financial burden on female students, which Lindlar said for someone earning minimum wage, means spending roughly 38 full working days of earnings on tampons and towels alone. The Guild officer has managed to order hundreds of sanitary items which are now available free of charge for University of Birmingham students.

Lindlar added in the blog post: “I urge other unions to follow suit and provide free sanitary products to their students.”

Other universities have started their own initiatives for example the University of Sussex Students’ Union hands out free sanitary products every Wednesday and, last year, the University of East Anglia Students’ Union announced it was going ‘profit free’ on the ‘essential’ and ‘crucial’ products by selling them at cost price.

The forgotten hero's of WW1

Last month a two minute silence held in Centenary Square honoured the lost lives of servicemen and women killed while fighting for our country and freedom.

But how many people thought about the Hindu, Sikh and 40,000 Muslim soldiers from the Indian subcontinent who fought for the freedom of the west during WW1.

According to research by think-tank British Future, only 1 in 5 people are aware of this significant Muslim contribution and only 2% are aware of its scale.

It is growing concern that this has caused public misconceptions of a lack of Muslim involvement in the First World War.

A Birmingham descendant of a Muslim soldier who fought for the British Army in 1915, has said: “It is frustrating to live in a society were my ancestors efforts go unnoticed and unappreciated.”

“When the British called on brave soldiers to fight for the Crown and Empire. My great great grand-father was one of the many Muslim soldiers to step forward and fight for a country he had no moral compulsion to fight for.”

The Perry Barr resident went on to say: “He fought with integrity and courage and after the War he returned home having seen atrocities and having lost friends. He kept souvenirs and coins from countries he had fought in that are still part of our family history.”

It is no secret that Islamophobia has swept through the western world in recent times, but it is a tragedy that the participation of Muslim soldiers fighting to defend the freedom of the west has long been forgotten.

The Heritage Lottery Fund, has announced they will be supporting a major national project called “An Unknown and Untold Story – The Muslim Contribution to The First World War.”

This aims to address the public appetite for information about the contribution of soldiers from the Commonwealth during WW1.

Dilwar Hussain, Chair of New Horizons in British Islam, says: “The story of Muslim contribution to the British Army of the First World War is little-known among the public. Many British Muslims themselves don’t realise the relevance of the WW1 centenary to their own history.”

A moment of reflection is important to the memory of the soldiers who past, but the real tribute is to live in a world rid of judgement and racial hatred.

To truly honour their lives we must lives ours well.