The Daily Populous Monday July 13rd, 2026 day edition
Authored by middleeasteye.net and submitted by ArgentineBeauty

Bushra Mahnoor grew up in Attock, in Pakistan’s Punjab province, where sanitary pads were carefully rationed among six menstruating women in her household – a reality reflected in many homes across the province.

In a home shared with her mother and four sisters, supplies often ran low, and the cost of pads, classed as non-essential goods by the government, meant every purchase had to be weighed and stretched.

Mahnoor, 26, remembered how the stockpile was carefully watched over and had to be divided between them, and the strain this caused at home.

“I felt like we were competing with each other for the supplies,” she said.

At school, there was always the fear of starting her period without the means to manage it. She would secrete away pads for herself when she could.

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Mahnoor also grew up hearing that showering during menstruation could make you ill, gain weight, and that a period was a sign of impurity. At school, teachers insisted it was a subject to be taught about at home. At home it was rarely mentioned at all.

This is a common reality for women across Pakistan. According to 2025 data from The World Bank, women make up 49.3 percent of the country's population, but only 12 percent use commercial sanitary products, largely because they are unaffordable. Only 27 percent understand their period as a natural biological process.

Campaigners say this is the result of successive governments leaving issues around menstruation unacknowledged and shrouded in a culture of silence and shame.

Mahwari Justice organiser Bushra Mahnoor, 26, addresses a crowd at Aurat March Lahore in 2022, advocating for gender equality in Pakistan (supplied)

Before this month, menstrual products and contraceptives were still subject to an 18 percent sales tax. That changed when Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb scrapped the levy – often referred to as the "period tax" – as part of the 2026–27 budget.

The development has been well received by campaign groups across the country.

Unicef Pakistan told Middle East Eye: “It was a meaningful step towards addressing period poverty by recognising menstrual products as essential health and hygiene items rather than luxury goods.”

The move followed a constitutional petition launched by women’s rights activist and human rights lawyer Mahnoor Omer, 25, and tax lawyer Ahsan Jahangir Khan, 29. It is expected to reduce the cost of sanitary products for millions of women across Pakistan, but campaigners acknowledge that the push for menstrual justice is far from over.

Under Pakistan’s Sales Tax Act of 1990, menstrual products were treated like any other consumer item, while imported goods were subject to an additional 25 percent customs duty. Together, these taxes pushed up prices by as much as 40 percent, leaving basic sanitary products unaffordable for the majority of girls and women.

At the same time, foods such as flavoured yoghurt and cottage cheese were classified as essential goods, while sanitary products were not.

For Omer, this never made sense. She had worked with NGOs from a young age, often alongside women in low-income communities, and she saw what this tax meant in practice: folded scraps of old fabric rinsed and reused for days at a time; the infections and other health risks that followed.

Last year, Omer came across the story of two Nepali law students, Shreena Nepal and Abhyuday Bhetwal, who had successfully challenged a 13 percent value-added tax (VAT) on sanitary pads. The Nepal government subsequently scrapped the levy, cutting the price of menstrual products by almost a fifth.

Months later, while working at Pakistan's Supreme Court, she met Khan. They began to discuss the possibility of bringing a similar change in Pakistan.

Activist and human rights lawyer Mahnoor Omer and tax lawyer Ahsan Jahangir Khan at a court hearing on the removal of sales tax on sanitary products (supplied)

In January 2025, Omer and Khan filed a constitutional petition challenging the tax on the grounds of equality and dignity. Their online campaign quickly gathered thousands of signatures.

While The Federal Board of Revenue initially defended the tax, arguing that it was both lawful and non-discriminatory, by July the government had dropped its defence, announcing that the tax would be scrapped.

“In a province large enough to fit 20 European countries, menstruation has never been discussed this openly in the Punjab Assembly,” said Omer.

“Women's issues are often under-represented in parliament. Many male representatives lack lived experience of these issues, while some influential women may be too removed from the experiences of those who need support most.”

In Pakistan’s Punjab province, where women hold 66 of 371 seats in the provincial assembly, campaigners say deep-rooted cultural stigma around menstruation has long constrained open discussion of the issue. But the finance minister’s recent announcement is an official acknowledgment of a problem that has largely been kept out of public debate.

'We campaign until it's tax free'

Bushra Mahnoor worked alongside Omer and Khan throughout the case, advocating for tax reform through Mahwari Justice, the organisation she founded in 2022, during some of the worst flooding in Pakistan’s modern history. Around 33 million people were affected, a third of the country was submerged, and access to sanitary products in displacement camps became critically scarce.

Mahnoor travelled to the camps to distribute hygiene kits: reusable pads, small washing bowls and drying cloths. Many of the women there had suffered urinary tract infections and skin rashes from using unhygienic substitutes for sanitary pads. When clean products were provided, they responded with embraces and kisses on her forehead.

'In a province large enough to fit 20 European countries, menstruation has never been discussed this openly in the Punjab Assembly' – Mahnoor Omer, human rights activist and lawyer

“Getting this tax removed is not like waving a magic wand,” Mahnoor acknowledged. “It won’t solve every challenge overnight, but it is an important step towards opening up conversations about menstruation.”

Even after the abolition of the sales tax, menstrual products in Pakistan still incur an additional 25 percent customs duty, significantly increasing their retail cost. Reclassifying them as zero-rated or exempt would remove VAT and similar taxes from the price, lowering costs and improving affordability for the women and girls who need them.

A growing number of countries have already moved in this direction. The UK and Ireland have scrapped VAT on period products as part of broader zero-rating policies for essential goods, while Kenya, South Africa and Canada also impose no tax on menstrual products.

In the US, 18 states still charge sales tax on menstrual products as of March 2026.

In Pakistan, campaigners say they are increasingly confident about securing a full tax exemption. “Our fight didn’t end with the government saying they will abolish the sales tax; it continues until the court declares this product tax-free,” said Khan.

Meanwhile, Omer is considering a prospective advocacy campaign focused on education reform, specifically the inclusion of mandatory sexual and reproductive health education in the school curriculum.

“You can flood the market with the healthiest food, but if children don’t understand why they should eat healthily, no one will buy it,” she said.

Like millions of girls and women around the world, Mahnoor experienced menstrual injustice, a term campaigners use to describe the social, economic and institutional disadvantages faced simply because people menstruate.

'Our fight didn’t end with the government saying they will abolish the sales tax; it continues until the court declares this product tax-free' – Ahsan Jahangir Khan, tax lawyer

This includes being taught that menstruation is something to hide, missing school as a result, and being handed costly sanitary products over shop counters in discreet brown paper bags.

Campaigners warn that removing the sales tax would only marginally reduce that burden.

Since the beginning of the court case last year, Omer has been named on Time Magazine’s Women of the Year list, in recognition of her campaign to abolish the tax.

Mahnoor, meanwhile, was recently awarded the 2026 Commonwealth Youth Award for her work with Mahwari Justice, becoming only the fourth Pakistani recipient of the honour.

When asked about the accolades, they told Middle East Eye that recognition, however notable, does little, in their view, to resolve the issue at the heart of their work.

Still, they recalled with pride Aurangzeb’s speech on the floor of the National Assembly when announcing the policy change, in which he described menstrual products as essential to women’s health.

They said that menstruation had long been absent from parliamentary language, and hearing it spoken on the official record felt particularly significant for women and girls across Pakistan.

Omer said, “I think menstruation products were never included on the list of essential goods because menstruation is a term refused to be uttered on the Punjab assembly floor. But it has now, and that’s a significant step forward.”

RandomRobot on July 12nd, 2026 at 22:21 UTC »

> Only 27 percent understand their period as a natural biological process.

Holy shit.

FatDonkus on July 12nd, 2026 at 20:56 UTC »

What a stupid tax

ArgentineBeauty on July 12nd, 2026 at 19:50 UTC »

A small step in the right direction. Hopefully this is the start of changing attitudes and making these products more affordable and accessible.