The city council could grant the Frankfurt student representatives a wish on Thursday: In the future, all schools should have pads and tampons free of charge.

A request from the parliamentary groups of the coalition of the Greens, SPD, FDP and Volt provides for a pilot project to gain experience on reactions and costs over a period of one year.

Florentine Fritzen

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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The reason is that the period “does not take into account perfect timing”. It happens “often that menstruating people suddenly and unexpectedly find themselves in the situation of acute need of hygiene articles”. It is important to avoid “shame and restrictions for a natural biological process in the body”. The cost of menstrual items is estimated to be at least 200 euros a year - "Painkillers are not included here." Those affected by “period poverty” used toilet paper or cloth and stayed away from school. The consequence is educational injustice.

Since “children can menstruate from primary school”, the products should also be available in primary schools. The technical committees have already given their approval, also with the votes of the CDU parliamentary group. The Left has submitted its own application without a pilot project. "The parliamentary group" voted in favor of the coalition's motion, whose representative Nico Wehnemann recently caused a scandal in the plenary with a satirical motion about free menstrual items.

The coalition's proposal goes back to an initiative of the City School Students' Council. Its chairman Hannes Kaulfersch speaks of a "concrete improvement". He thinks it is better to set up dispensers in toilets than to leave a supply in the secretariat, as in other cities, which schoolgirls can only access on request. Kaulfersch is also prepared for adolescents to use tampons and sanitary towels for nonsense. In the beginning there will definitely be vandalism.

The head of the city council is taken with the idea, and with the Frankfurt youth in general. "This is no longer the zero-minded generation, they really want to get involved," says Hilime Arslaner-Gölbasi (The Greens). City councilors are not allowed to sit on a high pedestal. They would have to take up topics from those who experienced them on a daily basis. Arslaner-Gölbasi could have imagined hygiene articles in schools without a pilot project. But compromises are necessary in politics. “Some things just take their time.” She speaks of “girls”, the application says “menstruating people”. When asked about this, she says, there are a lot of young women in the parliamentary group who use a different language and value the “correct wording”.

As she says, the head of the city council has put its own motion on hold in the committee of elders, because the rules of procedure have to be changed for this: The student representatives should be given the right to speak in the Römer, in the committees and even in the plenum upon request.

Arslaner-Gölbasi wants to help shape it even before Frankfurt gets a youth parliament.

The right to speak could be decided early next year.

Hannes Kaulfersch hopes that this will "take part in discussions through discourse".

So far, the students have had to limit themselves to the public question time.