Chiara, 17, “has always had painful periods” during which “she can’t even get out of bed.” “I thought she could find a solution for all the girls who suffer like me with every period,” she explains to the Republic the teenager who is also a student representative on the council of her school, the Nervi-Servini Artistic High School in Ravenna, in north-eastern Italy.
Therefore, Chiara collected the testimonies of 16 of her classmates who also suffer from painful menstruation and presented them to her school council, where representatives of school staff and parents are present. She managed to obtain a modification of the school rules, with 10 votes in favor and three against.
From now on, “students with dysmenorrhea”, a term that designates painful menstruation, are “recognised up to two days per month of exception to the obligation to attend” in force in high school, reports the council’s deliberation document school published. on the school website.
High school girls who wish to obtain this type of menstrual leave must present an annual medical certificate proving their dysmenorrhea, which will exempt them from sending an absence certificate each time signed by their parents.
An increasingly popular concept
More and more companies and organizations around the world are beginning to test or implement menstrual leave. In France, for example, the Socialist Party announced at the end of December that from November 7 it will authorize employees at its national headquarters in Ivry-sur-Seine to “take an additional and optional day off to deal with the limitations that find”. during periods of menstruation”.
In mid-December, in Spain, the deputies approved in first reading a bill that establishes menstrual leave. The text still has to be voted on by the Senate. If definitively adopted, Spain would be the first European country to implement this measure, which exists in various forms in Japan or South Korea, for example.
Source: BFM TV
