Prioritise menstrual hygiene like free SHS to keep girls in school - Dr Priscilla Baffour to govt

Dr. Priscilla Twumasi Baffour, an economist at the University of Ghana, believes that the relentless fight by the masses to see the ‘phenomenon of period poverty’ fixed cannot be successful until menstrual hygiene management issues are given similar priority attached to the Free Senior High School education in the country by the government.

She argues that despite the fact that the free SHS program faces many obstacles, the government's commitment to enhancing the program is on track to create conditions that will allow education to flourish because of the priority placed on it by the government.

"We are aware that there are many problems with that program, but even so, the government has been very steadfast in maintaining that this is the course we are taking, and for that reason, I am arguing that if the period poverty problem is given the same level of priority, we can be sure that we will see results."

Dr. Priscilla Twumasi Baffour made this point on Tuesday, May 30, 2023, at the CDD-Ghana, Accra, during a roundtable discussion on the subject of "promoting girls' regular attendance in school through the elimination of ‘tampon taxes.’

The goal of the event was to increase the number of girls who regularly attend school by looking into the possibility of lowering the ‘tampon tax’ or the reclassification of menstrual products to medical necessities in order to eliminate the taxes to increase access to sanitary pads and ensure that girls do not miss classes.

The ‘tampon tax’, the import taxes imposed on menstrual hygiene products in Ghana, has been an impediment to girls’ accessibility to these products.

The roundtable discussion was attended by experts from various fields, including representatives from the Ghana Education Service, the Ministry of Finance, and the Ministry of Education, among other civil society organizations.

The event, according to Dr. Kojo Asante, Director of Advocacy and Policy Engagement at CDD-Ghana, aims to identify and forge consensus among key stakeholders, including activists and non-governmental organizations working toward the urgent need to repeal the taxes.

It also seeks to brainstorm the key strategies for sustaining Ghana’s activism toward reforming the taxes on menstrual hygiene products.

The roundtable discussion gave both the panelists and the attendees a forum to voice their concerns about the phenomenon of period poverty and to strategize on advocacy tactics they could use to pressure the government to address the issues by eliminating the ‘tampon tax’ on menstrual hygiene products, increasing access to WASH services, among other measures aimed at promoting menstrual hygiene.

The elimination of the “tampon tax” is not a silver bullet for improving girls' regular attendance in school. Changing deep-seated cultural attitudes towards menstruation also remains a challenge. However, this discussion provides an excellent starting point for enacting policies that support gender equality in Ghanaian education.

Lilipearl Baaba Otoo, a journalist and an advocate for Women’s rights who shared a panel with three others believes removing the ‘tampon tax’ would decrease the price of such products and make them more affordable, thereby improving accessibility for girls.

She maintained that several countries across Africa, including Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda, have already made menstrual hygiene products tax-free and called on the government to emulate those countries to help grant easy access to sanitary products to women and particularly girls thereby improving their regular attendance in school.

For her part, Nana Akua Agyapomaa Kyereh contends that although access to education is very important, there are limiting factors that are keeping the girls out of school which are no fault of theirs compounded by period poverty which ought to be addressed if the girl child can be in school as expected.

One of the key lessons that emerged from the roundtable was the need to have a conversation about period poverty and cervical cancer which has a direct correlation with human papillomavirus owing to high fatalities in women as a result of lack of vaccination. This suggestion was made by Kwame Sarpong Asiedu, a D&D Fellow at CDD-Ghana

Another critical lesson shared at the roundtable discussion was the need to whip up the attention of the media to join the campaign and contribute its quota through constant coverage of the issues and above all commit to agenda setting to drive the advocacy to achieve results.

In her concluding remarks, Dr. Priscilla Twumasi Baffour suggested that one way to achieve results is to see CSOs commit to lobbying people in authority who can make a change and the inclusion of influential women to champion the cause.

She equally called for the conversation to move beyond just taking off the import tax on sanitary products and focused on support of domestic production so that the prices of menstrual hygiene products could go at very competitive prices.

“I think that the conversation is a good start but truth be told that the taxes could be scrapped but you’ll not see much difference in terms of the price on the market because the middlemen in there could just pocket the difference because of the nature of the product. It is not like it is expensive so people will not buy, you don’t have a choice and you have to go for it”.

Francisca Sarpong Owusu, Assistant Research Analyst at the Center, who shared the panel added,

“We have a National Gender policy which seeks to ensure that gender is mainstreamed in all aspects of policymaking but in actual sense, gender is not considered in fiscal policymaking by Ministry of Finance.”

The roundtable aimed to spark a national discourse about the importance of menstrual hygiene management and its impact on girls’ education in Ghana.

The removal of the “tampon tax” would reduce the barriers and challenges girls face in accessing menstrual health products and consequently improve their academic performance and retention in school.