on: The Struggle To Keep Clean

Hello Friend,

Thanks for joining me in thinking about human rights and social justice this week. I realise it isn’t sunshine and rainbows, but glad you have decided to wrestle with issues that face so many people.

This week, we’re talking about hygiene poverty.

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Lauren

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Toilet roll, shampoo, nappies, washing up liquid, toothpaste, detergent, sanitary products – hygiene products that many don’t think twice about picking up on the weekly shop. But over one third of people living in the UK have had to go without these hygiene essentials due to lack of funds. People living in some degree of poverty that must reuse sanitary pads because they can’t afford to keep buying them. Parents that send kids into school with dirty clothes, because they can’t pay to wash them every day. Children who are admitted to hospital due to tooth decay. Hygiene poverty shouldn’t be an issue in a developed country, but it is a risk that over 14 million people living in poverty in the UK face.

Anna Fok works for a grassroots, community-driven charity, The Hygiene Bank, and she explained to me what that hygiene poverty ‘is not being able to access what you need to keep yourself clean.’ She went on to describe that hygiene poverty is often found ‘where there is deprivation; so council estates, working class families, asylum seekers.’ Hygiene Bank collects donations of products and money from community members, national charities, and product brands. The products are then redistributed to partners in schools and community organizations, which hand them out to those in need. In Anna’s local Cardiff project, she has seen an increase of over a hundred people or families each week accessing The Hygiene Bank since the start of the year.

People like David. David is a father that is raising four children with his wife. He told me how he felt when he struggled to pay for all the hygiene essentials he needed for his family. ‘It made me feel like a failure. Like the 40-50 hours a week I worked still wasn’t enough.’ He continued, ‘We just had to sacrifice our wants and needs to ensure that the babies got what they needed. Several times, I can remember having to live off instant noodles and water to ensure we had enough money. It spilled into every aspect of life and caused immense tension in our relationship. It was extremely trying.’ He told me of how he used to bring home toilet roll from his job when he couldn’t afford to buy any and felt humiliated when he had to ask his parents for help.

David isn’t alone. The Hygiene Bank has been accessed by thousands, but there are even more that are struggling unseen. ‘Hygiene poverty often happens before food poverty’, Anna explained. It is when people access services like the Food Bank that their lack of hygiene products is made visible. People feel like they can cope without products to keep clean, so they suffer in silence until they struggle to pay for food.

A volunteer from the Food Bank told me about her experience of seeing people that accessed Food Bank also struggling to pay for hygiene products. ‘At first we provided just food. We quickly became aware that more was needed so we set up a compassionate discretionary fund with gifted money for gas and electricity. What's the point of a food parcel if you can't cook it and who can see someone sit in a dark and cold house?  Basic toiletries were soon added to what we gave and for women and girls sanitary products.’ It is quite common for Food Banks to include hygiene products for those that access food, as hygiene and food poverty are nearly always linked.

She went on to describe the particular problem for women to access sanitary products. ‘Some women made those products last longer by not changing them. Some had to improvise with toilet paper and worry about leaving the house without adequate protection. Many said they had to ask friends or family for some.  Mums prioritised their school age daughters to protect them. We saw providing sanitary products as a basic human necessity necessary to give women and girls the dignity they deserved, part of human dignity we all deserve. Shame is invisible but real. The small act of providing sanitary products is part of reducing the shame of poverty and unique to women.’

If a woman can’t keep herself clean for work or a girl for school, they are forced to either go into work and school and face embarrassment, or stay home and miss out on a career and education. Access to sanitary products is not a luxury, it’s a human right.

Lack of hygiene leads to shame, humiliation, and exclusion. But often, there is no choice. Hygiene needs take a back seat to paying for food, heat, and the rent. Children face the threat of the negative impact on their health and mental well-being, which could impact their long-term physical, social, and mental wellbeing. This shouldn’t be the case in the UK. There should be an infrastructure to ensure that individuals have access to the products that keep them clean. Until then, consider using your finances to fund and donate to charities like The Hygiene Bank and Food Bank. And join the fight to make sure that every person – man, woman, and child – has access to the human right of hygiene.