Question 18146 — places of deprivation of liberty

Summary

Mr. Bastien Lachaud questions the Keeper of the Seals, Minister of Justice, about access to menstrual protection for detained persons. A press article recently published in the newspaper l'Observateur presents an edifying picture of what is happening in prison. Women receive an “arrival kit”, which is supposed to contain, among other things, menstrual protection. But these are present in a variable manner and in varying qualities and quantities depending on the establishment. In any case, the quantities provided to inmates seem insufficient to cover needs. This leads to a clear break in equality for those who do not have the means to obtain supplies from the “canteen”, those who can sometimes pay prohibitively expensive prices for these protections, and depend on deliveries, while menstruation does not wait. The “kit” initial would be renewed only for those who have no resources, but the frequency of renewal poses a problem, leaving inmates without a solution. The inmates therefore resort to makeshift means, with what they can have in prison: tissues, toilet paper, pieces of clothing, any type of fabric that can absorb blood. Some detainees testify to the homemade production of menstrual cups: “They use a plastic bottle that they cut to keep only the top part.” “To avoid tearing the internal walls, the makeshift cup must be smoothed against a wall,” says Sophie, according to the same press article. Resorting to such solutions obviously poses serious health problems, due to the composition and material of these bottles, which are completely unsuitable for such use, and whose walls, even worn, risk causing serious injury. The prison context aggravates menstrual poverty, because recourse is necessarily limited. Although some prisons ensure that protections are available, this does not seem to be the case everywhere, due to limited budgets where the hygiene of inmates is not considered a priority. The prison sentence is a sentence of deprivation of liberty, but cannot be accompanied by a deprivation of dignity. However, menstrual protection is essential to the dignity and hygiene of women. Also, he would like to know what she intends to do to put an end to the scandal of menstrual poverty in prison, and what measures she intends to take so that all prisoners have access to these protections in sufficient quality and quantity.

Machine translation from French. The official text remains authoritative.

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