President Jair Bolsonaro (no party) vetoed this Thursday (7) the free distribution of tampons, which was included in a bill passed in Congress in September. The proposal establishes the Menstrual Health Protection and Promotion Program. All items that provided for free availability of the hygiene product, its main focus, were vetoed. Bolsonaro only kept an excerpt that instituted the creation of the program as a "strategy for the promotion of health and attention to hygiene," with the objective of "combating menstrual precariousness". The Chief Executive also maintained an informational campaign on menstrual health.
The president's vetoes were published in the Official Gazette of the Union this Thursday (7). The bill provided for low-income students enrolled in public schools as beneficiaries of the program; homeless women or in situations of extreme social vulnerability; apprehended women and prisoners; and women hospitalized in units to fulfill socio-educational measures.
In the reasons for veto, the federal government claims that the articles of the bill do not indicate the source of funding or compensatory measure, which would violate the Fiscal Responsibility Law. According to calculations by the authors of the bill, the program would benefit about 5.6 million women. The estimated fiscal impact was R$84.5 million per year.
Translated by Kiratiana Freelon