Add free sanitary pads to social intervention programmes – Gov’t told

As part of this year’s Menstrual Hygiene Day, the Ghana Chapter of Amnesty International, an international human rights non-governmental organisation, has organised a programme in solidarity with girls who are unable to provide hygienic sanitary towels to care for their monthly flows.

Held in Accra on Monday, May 27, the Eastern Regional Director for the Department of Community Development, an agency under the Office of Head of Local Government Service, Vera Allotey, called on the government to, as a matter of urgency, add sanitary products to its social intervention programme being extended to the poor and vulnerable.

The reason, according to her, is that most girls in rural settings and even some in urban centres who are poor and cannot afford these sanitary pads during their time of flow resort to using unhygienic products such as plantain suckers rubbed with clothes to have menstruation on.

She asserted that this poses health risks to the girls in the long run and may additionally put some of them out of school, owing to the fact that they fear staining themselves in the midst of their peers.

She said if the government is able to offer capitation grants to students and financial support to the elderly under the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme, then it should consider giving sanitary pads free of charge to females who cannot afford them.

Mrs. Allotey emphasised the need for government intervention in providing free sanitary pads to vulnerable girls, despite ongoing assistance from NGOs and international organisations. She proposed further that the prices should be significantly reduced, even for those who can afford them.

“Sanitary products, so we are appealing; that is done, but the NGOs and the international organisations can’t do it alone. We, with the government, would have to push for the government to pass a bill to actually scrap the tax. We want a zero-tax exemption on the sanitary products, not just the sanitary pads. These are the sanitary products we are talking about, at least for the vulnerable,” she said.

“Personally, my issue is that if we have a bracket of very poor individuals and they are being supported with LEAP, they are being supported under the school feeding programme. With so many social intervention programmes around, we should definitely add the sanitary pads free of charge, at least for starters for those so poor individuals, so that they get them for free. Then we can talk about the taxes, which also affect the working class in the country,” she added.

All the other panellists of the discussion session, Theodora Abaka Acquah and Akosua Kwafo Ogyiri, and the moderator, Helena Appiah Ampofo, were in unison that the government should remove all taxes on sanitary pads while distributing them freely to females who cannot afford them.

Board Vice Chair for Amnesty International Ghana, Charity Bature, for her part, threw more light on the day or celebration, and she disclosed that globally, a day is set aside to look into the issues of menstruation and how girls and women should care for themselves during their monthly flows.

Madam Bature observed that, before now, issues of menstruation were discussed in secret.

Nonetheless, she contended it was high time males in society were afforded the opportunity to know about menstruation so that when their wives or partners aren’t around, they can be able to give them the utmost care and guidance to their female wards or daughters, who may be new to the process.