The hiked price of sanitary towels in Ghana has resulted in some women deploying other means and materials to use during menstruation, according to editor of the Insight Newspaper, Kwesi Pratt Jnr
From using untreated fabrics, tissues, to corn husk, some women, in recent times are using diapers when menstruating, he said while speaking on Good Morning Ghana.
According to Mr Kwesi Pratt Jnr, the inability of some women and girls to change their pads during menstruation is having health implications on them.
He therefore called on the government to scrap the taxes on sanitary pads for women. He stressed that such an action will solidify government’s stance that it protects women and girls in the country.
“There is one thing which is absolutely shocking, the utter disregard for the plight of women and the demands of women. You remember the don’t tax my period campaign…the demand was not just mentioned and I’m sitting back and I am just wondering. We all say that we want to protect the interest of women and so on and such a crucial issue,” he said.
“If you talk to health practitioners, they are telling you that now, many women have sexual diseases and so on. Why, because the pads they use when they have their periods and other things are so expensive they cannot buy so what some women are doing is, they are using pampers because it absorbs a lot more blood and so on. Some of them wear it in the morning and dispose it off in the evening some even the next day. It causes diseases,” he added.
Kwesi Pratt Jnr said he could not fathom why government lists sanitary pad as a luxury item when every girl needs it.
Sanitary products attract 32.5 percent tax on imported sanitary pads which is made up of 20 percent import duty and 12.5 percent in Value Added Tax.