Pakistan wants to cut period tax on menstrual products by 18%, but the poorest families still can’t afford it

Pakistan wants to abolish sales tax on menstrual pads and tampons from July. This move is intended to make the products more affordable in a country where access to and knowledge of menstrual hygiene remains low.

Pakistan Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb announced a plan to scrap the 18 percent sales tax this month, saying sanitary pads and tampons were “essential for women’s health, dignity and full participation in social activities.”

Women’s and rights activists have hailed the plan as a victory for menstrual health rights. It follows a nationwide debate that began last year after an activist took the Pakistani government to court to challenge taxes on sanitary pads and tampons.

In Pakistan, the world’s fifth-most populous country, only about 12 percent of menstruating girls and women use commercially produced sanitary napkins, compared to 36 percent in neighboring India, according to UNICEF, a United Nations children’s agency.

But activists say more needs to be done to help girls and women obtain menstrual products and eliminate the stigma surrounding menstruation. In rural areas and among conservative families, worn-out rags and unsanitary scraps of fabric are often the only alternative. According to UNICEF estimates, one in five Pakistani girls misses school due to their menstrual cycle.

“There is a poverty crisis in Pakistan,” said Mahnoor Omer, 25, an activist and lawyer who sparked the debate last year when she filed a petition in a Pakistani high court to declare sanitary napkins and tampons as essential, like certain food items. (The court is expected to rule in the last quarter of the year.) For her campaign, she was named one of Time magazine’s “Women of the Year.”

In a telephone interview, Ms. Omer called the elimination of the sales tax a positive but said the government should eliminate other taxes on sanitary products, which UNICEF estimates account for about 40 percent of the total price.

Hira Amjad, founder and executive director of the DASTAK Foundation, a Pakistani nonprofit that organizes menstrual health workshops in communities, said the tax cut was a “much-needed first step.”

However, she said that while the tax cut would help people with more resources and better access to pads and tampons in cities, it was unclear how it would benefit poorer families who “often have to choose between food on the table or access to menstrual products.”

Abeera Mujeeb, a computer science student in Quetta, western Pakistan, said pads and tampons are often unaffordable even for middle-class women like herself. “So the women who are among us, how expensive it must be for them,” Ms. Mujeeb, 19, said on Thursday as she went shopping with her mother.

Rabia, a mother of three daughters from Balochistan province who goes by only her first name, said she struggled to cover the household’s monthly spending on sanitary pads of about $40. The average monthly salary in Pakistan is around $140.

Despite the broader discussion about menstrual health, taboos remain widespread.

Ms Mujeeb, the IT student, said a teacher once scolded her for not hiding a pad she was carrying.

“When you buy them, you feel embarrassed,” said Areeba Khan, 22, a computer science student from the western city of Mastung, adding: “When you go to the store, you wait until everyone leaves” before asking about the products.

Ms Amjad from the DASTAK Foundation said the workshops she and her teams organized made it clear that Pakistani men were just as embarrassed as women to talk about menstruation, but that increasingly younger men and teenage boys were asking how they could support their female relatives.

This step is crucial, Ms. Amjad added, because “most often it is men who decide where and on what the income is spent. Women often do not even have the power to decide whether to buy menstrual products on the market or rely on cotton.”

Ms Omer, the activist, said she would use Finance Minister Aurangzeb’s description of sanitary products as “essential” in future legal arguments for greater access to reproductive and menstrual health.

“The finance minister – a man – said that menstrual products were a necessity,” Ms Omer said. “We can now use this statement as a springboard for future cases involving improved access to clean and accessible toilets and sex education.”