Hwaseong City, located in Gyeonggi Province, South Korea, has announced plans to implement public sanitary pads to ease the financial burden on women for menstrual products. This initiative comes as part of a broader effort to recognize sanitary pads as essential items that protect women's health and dignity. The city has partnered with a startup to begin production of these public sanitary pads, tentatively named 'Kori-yo,' which is inspired by a dinosaur fossil found in the region and symbolizes the city’s identity.

On October 4th, the city organized a meeting with the startup Happy Moon Day to discuss the safety, price competitiveness, and eco-friendly packaging of the prototype sanitary pads. They are working diligently to establish a robust verification system for raw materials and quality management standards. Furthermore, the city is considering the financial sustainability of the initiative while determining fair pricing, ensuring that the project can be maintained in the long term without excessive financial strain on local government resources.

The Hwaseong City government plans to start consultations with the Ministry of Health and Welfare and initiate the process of establishing relevant ordinances this month. Once administrative procedures are completed, they aim to pilot the public sanitary pads in four regions at public restrooms by the end of the year. This initiative aligns with the administration’s emphasis on basic social rights and aims to ensure that all citizens, especially economically vulnerable individuals, have access to essential menstrual products, responding to President Lee’s call for price stabilization of sanitary products made during a cabinet meeting earlier this year.