A sanitary serviette pad. Menstrual merchandise have been topic to an 18% gross sales tax in Pakistan, prompting protests. That tax will finish when a brand new finances takes impact on July 1.
Huizeng Hu/Second RF/Getty Photos
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Huizeng Hu/Second RF/Getty Photos
The Pakistani authorities is eradicating the gross sales tax on girls’s menstrual merchandise in addition to contraception. The finances for subsequent fiscal yr has the gross sales tax on these merchandise dropping from 18% to zero.
For many years, sanitary napkins and different menstrual gadgets have been taxed as “luxurious items” and the worth has put these merchandise out of attain for a lot of in Pakistan. In line with a report from UNICEF, revealed in 2025, solely about one in 10 women and girls in Pakistan use commercially manufactured merchandise.
The choice to remove the sale tax on these merchandise got here after activists launched a lobbying effort and authorized battle that have been broadly coated within the media.
“We’re very pleased with this information,” says Mahnoor Omer, a human rights lawyer primarily based in Islamabad. She is the petitioner in a September 2025 lawsuit that aimed to remove taxes on menstrual merchandise. “Women and men alike — everyone’s cheering on and welcoming this transfer.”
She praised the federal government for appearing comparatively shortly. “It is lower than a yr [since the lawsuit to end the tax was filed] which is unprecedented,” she says. “Courtroom circumstances take ceaselessly, and so do lawmakers and altering the legislation, so I’ll give credit score the place it is due.”
Pakistan is following within the footsteps of a number of different nations which, prior to now decade or so, have eliminated or lowered taxes and import duties on menstrual merchandise. These nations embrace Malawi, India and Nepal.
Nonetheless, some reproductive well being advocates warn that eliminating taxes doesn’t at all times decrease the worth of sanitary napkins. Take a look at what occurred in Malawi, says Emily Cruz, who works on menstrual well being for the nonprofit Splash. That nation removed all of the taxes on menstrual gadgets, she says, however the value to the patron remained the identical. Precisely why is a thriller.
“Why have not we seen the change in value?” she requested in an interview with NPR earlier this yr. “There is a query there that I really feel like actually must be unpacked.”
Cruz’s guess is that the activists seemingly want one other step of their technique after eradicating the taxes: “Possibly that is a coverage associated to subsidizing menstrual well being merchandise or maybe a coverage that does not permit a retailer to markup important items.”
Omer says adjustments in costs in Pakistan shall be tracked. And even with this finances announcement, she says, there may be extra work to do to allow girls to afford menstrual merchandise in Pakistan. Different taxes that may add as much as about 20% — just like the import responsibility — will stay.
Plus, she says, the price of this stuff is not the one challenge.
“You’ll be able to scale back the tax, however that does not mechanically scale back the stigma,” she says.
One other Pakistani activist, Bushra Mahnoor, instructed NPR earlier this yr that the stigma may be so intense that she usually skipped faculty as an adolescent when she had her interval and wasn’t positive if she’d be capable of discover a pad.
“Once I knew I may not have a pad and I needed to depend on a fabric, these have been the instances I couldn’t even think about going to the varsity,” Mahnoor recalled. “It was an enormous taboo mentioning that you simply have been in your interval. However mentioning that you simply have been in your interval with out entry to a pad was simply much more humiliating.”
Omer says, along with stigma round menstruation and reproductive well being extra broadly, there may be additionally a scarcity of primary well being data on the subject, significantly in rural areas. She wish to see these points addressed at school classes and consciousness campaigns.
Nonetheless, Omer says, she’s celebrating this transformation within the tax code. “This transfer has impressed me to take extra motion — simply figuring out that this stuff aren’t going to result in nothing,” she says.
The sale tax on menstrual merchandise will formally be dropped when the brand new finances takes impact on July 1.
