Education is a powerful tool for transforming lives. World’s Children estimates that each additional year of primary school, a girl completes increases her future earnings by 10–20%.
Educated girls are more likely to marry later, have fewer children, and provide better opportunities for the next generation. Regrettably, Oxfam Ghana 2020 posited that issues such as early marriages, pregnancy, poverty and sexual harassment are obstacles that continue to force girls to drop out of school before the end of junior high school.
UNICEF reported that the average number of years of education that the poorest girls from rural areas aged 20 to 24 can attain is about four, compared to 13 for girls from affluent homes in urban areas.
Globally, girls’ access to education is steadily improving. In Ghana, efforts to promote gender parity in education have led to significant progress. By 2019, the country ranked 7th in sub-Saharan Africa on gender parity in education, with a score of 61% (Equal Measures 2030).
Despite this progress, deep-seated structural barriers remain. Ghana has achieved near-complete gender parity in enrolment at the primary and secondary levels, yet many girls do not complete their education, particularly in STEM subjects.
In sub-Saharan Africa, gender parity in education lags behind the global average, with the region scoring only 54% compared to the global average of 75% (Global Partnership for Education, 2024). Among the key barriers in Ghana is menstruation, which continues to undermine girls’ ability to stay in school.
Menstrual health is a fundamental human right, given that menstruation is a necessary part of human existence. UNICEF estimates that 1.8 billion women menstruate worldwide yet, for about 500 million women and girls, the biological phenomenon becomes a struggle every month.
With the price of hygienic menstrual products like sanitary products ever-increasing, many are denied a dignified and healthy menstrual process. This is what is referred to as period poverty- the lack of access to sanitary pads or products for the menstrual cycle.
The Government of Ghana through its foremost revenue body- the Ghana Revenue Authority is the biggest contributor to this regrettable experience.
The Authority subjects imported sanitary products to a 20% import tax levy and a 15% value-added tax. Per the Authority’s indirect tax regime, items are either classified as essential or luxury where the latter attracts taxes and the former does not.
Consider the reality of how a country decides to penalize women for a natural biological activity by categorizing hygienic menstrual products as luxury. Untenable, isn’t it?
In addition to that, sanitary products are slapped with the following other taxes in the country; 0.5% ECOWAS levy, 15% Network charges, 2.5% Import NHIL, 1% IRS tax deposit, 0.75% EXIM levy, 2.5% GETFund, 0.4% Processing fee, 2.5% Network NHIL, 2% Special Import Levy, 1% Inspection fee, and 1% Covid-19 health recovery levy as well as 0.2% African Union import levy.
It is these excessive taxes that have driven the cost of sanitary products to be too expensive and mostly not accessible, especially for the most vulnerable and marginalized women and young girls in the country.
Indeed, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), revealed that 10% of adolescent girls in Africa miss school during their period and further added that a number of these poor girls lose 39 learning days in school each year due to the lack of access to sanitary pads during menstruation.
CAMFED Ghana posited that girls who miss six weeks of school per year are even less likely to keep up with the curriculum, do well in exams, and complete their secondary education — just because of a natural process they cannot avoid and at the same time do not have the luxury sanitary products for their upkeep.
Sanitary Products: A Lavish Many Women and Young Girls Cannot Afford
For many women and girls in Ghana, the high cost of sanitary products forces them to use unhygienic alternatives, such as cloth, sand, or ash. Some have resorted to using baby diapers, while others are alleged to engage in transactional sex to afford sanitary pads, thereby increasing their risk of early pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections.
The financial burden is especially severe for street hawkers and young girls in rural areas. A girl earning GHS 25 -35 daily from selling water or meat pies cannot afford three packs of sanitary pads, each costing GHS 20 – 40, to cover her menstrual period of 4–7 days.
The ramifications effects are that most vulnerable young girls have become victims of early and unwanted pregnancies, and their culprits mostly deny the pregnancy because these young girls are unable to afford sanitary products every month thereby becoming prey to men who promised them to take care of such responsibilities.
Additionally, the costly sanitary products are not only portending serious health implications and reinforcing discrimination among girls and women, but it is hindering Ghana’s ambitious effort in attaining SDG 1 -no poverty, SDG 3 – good health and well-being, SDG 4- quality education and SDG 5- gender equality. This is not just a commentary, in 2022, Ghana placed 110th position out of 163 countries that can achieve the global 17 development goals.
Following almost a decade of anti-campaign against the tax regime on sanitary products by gender activists, students’ unions and others, in 2023, the Ghanaian government implemented a zero-rate VAT on locally manufactured sanitary products and granted import duty waivers for raw materials used in production.
While commendable, these measures fall short of addressing the broader affordability crisis caused by the continued imposition of luxury taxes on imported sanitary products which make up the majority of sanitary products available in the market.
Therefore, while girl-child-focused non-governmental organizations, philanthropists, and gender advocates have continued to show deeper commitment and offered a helping hand to thousands of young girls with the free distribution of sanitary products who otherwise couldn’t afford it, renewed and sustained advocacy for the scrapping of taxes on the sanitary products is required to make it more affordable for the ordinary people- charity alone is not the sustainable solutions in getting from this challenge; government must and should play its role.
Even more particularly, as the new Government of President John Mahama through his Finance Minister prepares to submit before Parliament its first Budget for the remaining three quarters of the 2025 financial year on 10th March 2025, citizens of conscience must rise up and support this very essential campaign to ask the Government to take the most decisive and far-reaching decision of making sanitary products affordable by scrapping the 20% import tax and a 15% VAT rate.
If this country could build a national consensus for the scrapping of the 10% withholding tax on bet-winnings because it is a nuisance and unfriendly to the teeming unemployed youth, we should definitely agree to the scrapping of a tax regime that deprives our marginalised women and girls a dignified and hygienic natural biological journey like menstruation.
To our Members of Parliament especially the women, do not wait until the budget reading day to advocate for change where you are likely to miss the opportune moment to make life less traumatic for the most marginalized girls and women in your constituency, we indulge you to kickstart discussions now to influence policy decisions that will benefit marginalized women and girls in your constituencies.
To President Mahama and Hon. Casiel Ato Forson, uphold the fundamental human rights of young girls and do just by thousands of vulnerable homes whose girl-child suffer period poverty simply because of highly tax-induced expensive sanitary products and this cycle of unconscionable luxury taxes on sanitary products.
Just as other essential goods contribute to well-being, sanitary pads are crucial for a girl-child to feel secure, concentrate on their studies, and attend school regularly.
This country of ours must prioritise menstrual health by scrapping the luxury tax on sanitary products and ensure that no girl’s education is disrupted by her period. Girl child education cannot wait, menstruation or period poverty shouldn’t make it.
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