"Growing up in Rawalpindi, a city adjacent to Pakistan's capital Islamabad, Mahnoor Omer remembers the shame and anxiety she felt in school when she had periods. Going to the toilet with a sanitary pad was an act of stealth, like trying to cover up a crime. I used to hide my pad up my sleeve like I was taking narcotics to the bathroom, says Omer, who comes from a middle-class family her father a businessman and her mother a homemaker."
"Pakistani governments have, under the Sales Tax Act of 1990, long charged an 18 percent sales tax on locally manufactured sanitary pads and a customs tax of 25 percent on imported ones, as well as on raw materials needed to make them. Add on other local taxes, and UNICEF Pakistan says that these pads are often effectively taxed at about 40 percent."
"Now 25, Omer has gone from cautious schoolgirl to national centrestage in a battle that could reshape menstrual hygiene in Pakistan, a country where critics say economics is compounding social stigma to punish women simply for being women. In September, Omer, a lawyer, petitioned the Lahore High Court, challenging what she and many others say is effectively a period tax imposed by Pakistan on its more than 100 million women."
Mahnoor Omer experienced shame and secrecy around menstruation at school and concealed sanitary pads to avoid stigma. Pakistan applies an 18 percent sales tax on locally made pads and a 25 percent customs tax on imports, with additional levies and taxes on raw materials, producing an effective taxation often around 40 percent according to UNICEF Pakistan. Omer petitioned the Lahore High Court in September, arguing that such taxes specifically burden women, are discriminatory, and violate constitutional guarantees of equality, dignity, elimination of exploitation, and promotion of social justice. Menstruation remains taboo and cost barriers restrict poorer women’s access.
Read at www.aljazeera.com
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