Menstrual Hygiene Day: Adolescent Girls Appeal to Gov’t to Reduce Taxes on Sanitary Pads

Junior High School girls in the Kwabre East municipality in the Ashanti Region have called on government to reduce taxes on menstrual pads to make them affordable and accessible to underprivileged girls and young women.

They said sanitary pads are very expensive and parents cannot afford to buy enough pads for their adolescent girls, and this can lead the girls to engage in sexual relationships with boys or men who eventually get them pregnant.

According to them, they sometimes miss classes during their menstrual period while some even use rags due to lack of funds to purchase sanitary pads.

The students shared their concerns when the Mother’s Daughter Foundation in collaboration with Garden City University college, Mantrac Ghana and Sunda International Company Limited presented 822 pads to selected five junior high schools in the Kwabre East Municipality to commemorate this year’s World Menstrual Hygiene Day.

According to Madam Theresa Morena Darko, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Mother’s Daughter Foundation, Menstrual Hygiene Day is a reminder to educate young girls, particularly those who haven’t started menstruating, to prepare them beforehand, so they’re not caught off guard when they start their periods.

She encouraged the young girls to be confident and comfortable during their menstrual cycles, urging them to view their periods as natural.

As part of their corporate social responsibility, Mrs. Gladys Oteng Nkrumah of Mantrac Ghana and Thomas Amiah Junior of Sunda International Company Limited donated sanitary pads to support the Mother’s Daughter Foundation’s Menstrual Hygiene Day celebration.

Source:  Johnson Owusu Aduomi