The Hands of Gold Foundation (HOGF) has called on the government of Ghana to remove the high taxes on sanitary pads to make them accessible to all especially girls in underprivileged communities.
Development Diaries reports that the nonprofit said about 53 percent of adolescent girls in underserved and marginalised communities in Ghana still find it difficult to afford sanitary pads.
It is understood that the high cost of sanitary pads in Ghana is due to the high taxes on the production and import of sanitary wares.
SGD Three: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
Speaking at the launch of the ‘Get a Pad, Get Education, Get a life’ project in Accra, the organisation’s Communications Manager, Edwina Amoyaw, called on the government and its affiliate organisations to come up with well-structured programmes to ease the financial burden menstruating women faced.
The programme is designed to offer a monthly supply of sanitary pads, menstrual hygiene education and regular free health screening to 30,000 adolescents girls from 16 regions of the country.
‘I appeal to our government to meaningfully reduce or completely remove the 12.5 percent VAT and 20 percent luxury tax on sanitary products’, Ghanaian Times quoted Amoyaw as saying.
For her part, the Assistant Corporate Officer, Media Relations of the National Youth Authority, Akua Adufa Mintah, re-echoed the need for women and adolescent girls to easily afford sanitary pads, stressing that it will help in protecting their education.
HOGF is a non-governmental organisation (NGO) that focuses on the welfare of women, children, and the vulnerable in society.
Photo source: Global Partnership for Education
