Experts have urged government and relevant authorities to prioritise discussions about period poverty in the country to be able to make suitable decisions amid worries regarding menstrual management among girls in deprived areas.
They also called for support for domestic sanitary pad producers to curb the increasing pricing of the product, reiterating the need to remove taxes on sanitary products.
They made the call at Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana)’s roundtable discussion aimed at identifying and forging consensus amongst key stakeholders on the urgent need to repeal the taxes on menstrual hygiene products.
Themed, promoting girls’ regular attendance in school through the elimination of ‘tampon taxes’, it brainstormed key strategies to sustain activism toward reforming the taxes on menstrual hygiene products.
In Ghana, like many other countries in Africa, menstrual hygiene products attract a myriad of taxes due to their classification in the harmonised tax code. The categorisation of menstrual hygiene products within the sales tax base in Ghana poses a significant barrier to menstrual health and hygiene as these taxes make them expensive and difficult to access, especially for girls and women in low-income households. Also, recent research has shown that the soaring prices of period pads due to taxes and inflation and poor menstrual hygiene management are contributing to the high absenteeism rates among girls in schools, which negatively impacts their educational performance.
However, the Head of Tax Policy Unit at the Finance Ministry argued that taking off the taxes, especially on the imported ones will make the space very competitive for local producers.
He urged advocates to thoroughly think about the impact of eliminating the taxes and also offer an alternate approach, noting that the ministry is also conducting research to decide on the best course of action.
Senior Lecturer at the Department of Economics at the University of Ghana, Dr. Priscilla Twamasi Baffuor, who was a panelist, argued that conversations on period poverty must be prioritized to find the best and sustainable way out.
“We also need to move the conversation from only taking off the taxes. Government must in the short and medium time decide on what can be done to ensure wide accessibility and sustainability. I think it is a matter of priority. School feeding programme and others were prioritised and this too needs to be prioritised,” she said.
Other women and period poverty advocates including, founder of Kyereh Foundation, Nana Akua Agyapomaa Kyereh and Journalist, Lilipearl Baaba Otoo urged non-governmental organisations (NGOs) championing the course to build a united front to tackle the plights of the girl child.
They noted that working in silos has not yielded much results and given the dier plights gathered from their outreachs, there is the need for a collaborative effort coupled with adequate support.
Participants suggested integrating stakeholders in the discussions to build strategies and mechanisms that could guide how domestic producers can be best supported to help change the narrative for especially girls in deprived poor communities.
