Dysmenorrhea, characterized by severe and frequent menstrual pain during periods, is at the heart of one loving father’s effort to make a key change to absence policies at a secondary school in the U.K.
In a petition to the Department for Education, Marcus Alleyne revealed that—on Sept. 22—one of his daughters, age 13, needed to miss class due to this globally recognized condition. Instead, Alleyne said, “Very clear disparities” were brought forward by the school’s decision to label such an absence as an “unauthorized” one.
Alleyne added that he was saddened by the fact that he was being forced to take action on the issue and noted that the incident raises “significant concerns surrounding the physical, mental and social wellbeing of not only my daughters but all people who have periods across the country.”
At the time of this writing, the petition—which calls for dysmenorrhea to be recognized as a legitimate reason for school absences—had garnered more than 50,000 signatures and had already surpassed its original goal.
In an interview with Sky News earlier this week, Alleyne went into greater detail about his family’s experience.
“We didn’t feel as parents that it was right or appropriate to send her into school so we contacted our school and informed them that she was unwell,” he said. “We had a phone call about half an hour later asking why she was unwell… The school asked if it was due to period pains, and I said yes.”
From there, he said, the school’s response was that “it would be registered as an unauthorized absence.” Alleyne said this was the moment that he and his wife Jo decided they would try to do something about this antiquated approach to school attendance.
For more, see Alleyne’s petition here.
