The average woman has her period for around five days and will use four pads a day. Under the previous taxation scheme, this would cost her LKR 520 a month. The estimated average monthly household income of the households in the poorest 20% in Sri Lanka is LKR 14,84. To these households, the monthly cost of menstrual hygiene products would therefore make up 3.5% of their expenses. In comparison, the percentage of expenditure of this income category on clothing is around 4.4%.
The impact of unaffordability
The high cost of menstrual hygiene products in Sri Lanka has direct implications on girls’ education, health and employment.
According to a 2015 analysis of 720 adolescent girls and 282 female teachers in Kalutara district, 60% of parents refuse to send their girls to school during periods of menstruation. Moreover, in a survey of adolescent Sri Lankan girls, slightly more than a third claimed to miss school because of menstruation. When asked to explain why, 68% to 81% cited pain and physical discomfort and 23% to 40% cited fear of staining clothes.
Inaccessibility of menstrual hygiene products also results in the use of makeshift, unhygienic replacements, which have direct implications on menstrual hygiene management (MHM). Poor MHM can result in serious reproductive tract infections. A study on cervical cancer risk factors in India, has found a direct link between the use of cloths during menstruation (a common substitute for sanitary napkins) and the development of cervical cancer; the second-most common type of cancer among Sri Lankan women today.
The unaffordability of menstrual hygiene products is proven to have direct consequences on women’s participation in the labor force. A study on apparel sector workers in Bangladesh found that providing subsidised menstrual hygiene products resulted in a drop in absenteeism of female workers and an increase in overall productivity.
Slashing taxes for gender equality
Internationally, repeals on menstrual hygiene product taxation are becoming increasingly common due to their proliferation of gender inequality and the resulting unaffordability of essential care items, commonly known as ‘period poverty’. Kenya was the first country to abolish sales tax for menstrual products in 2004 and countries including Australia, Canada, India, Ireland and Malaysia have all followed suit in recent years.
If Sri Lankans are serious about creating an equal platform for women and girls to achieve their full potential, ‘Collective Individualism’ is certainly the key. Gender equality can no longer be just a ‘women’s issue’. It’s an ‘everyone’s issue’. Each and every Sri Lankan has a responsibility to demand real action from their policymakers, to promote gender-sensitive policies and abolish taxes like this, which actively limit a woman’s ability to achieve her full potential.