September 19, 2025
By Xari Jalil
LAHORE
A petition has been filed at the Lahore High Court (Rawalpindi branch) by petitioners Mahnoor Omer, and Ahsan Jahangir, lawyers by profession, calling for the removal of taxes from all products relating to women’s menstrual health, or “period tax” as it is known.
The petition is titled Mahnoor Omer versus the Federation of Pakistan, through Ministries of Law and Justice, Finance, and the Federal Board of Revenue naming respondents the National Commission of the Status of Women (NCSW) and National Commission of Human Rights (NCHR).
One of the petitioners Mahnoor Omer, is also an activist for women and minority rights. Her research focuses on gender gaps in legal institutions. The instant Writ Petition is in the form of Public Interest Litigation and as detailed below seeks to abolish the “period tax” on women in Pakistan.
The petitioner gives grounds of her reasoning in the importance of women’s health but laments that the respondents have an “utter disregard for it”.
According to the Population and Housing Census of 2023, women make up nearly half of the total population of Pakistan – specifically, 48.51% while the average annual growth rate for Pakistan’s populace stands at a staggering 2.55%.
Projections using compound growth indicate that by 2033, the number of women in Pakistan will rise to nearly 151 million. This reflects an increase of about 33.85 million additional female citizens over the next decade. Such a demographic shift underscores the urgent need for gender-responsive planning in education, healthcare, employment, and civic infrastructure to accommodate and empower a significantly larger female population in the coming years.
Period poverty & its effects
Omer describes in the petition that period poverty refers to the lack of access to menstrual products, adequate hygiene facilities, waste management, and education about menstruation. This is a significant public health and human rights issue that disproportionately affects girls and women from low-income households. As per some conservative estimates, period poverty is a pressing issue affecting more than 30 million women in Pakistan, depriving them of access to menstrual hygiene products. In many parts of Pakistan, menstruation remains a deeply stigmatised topic, shrouded in silence and misinformation. This silence exacerbates the shame and embarrassment girls often feel, reinforcing, highlights the petition.
The consequences of period poverty are far-reaching.
Girls, especially in rural areas, frequently miss school during their periods due to a lack of sanitary products, proper and private toilets, or safe spaces, which directly impacts their academic performance and long-term educational outcomes. Many eventually drop out altogether.
For adult women, particularly those in low-income or rural areas, the inability to afford or access menstrual hygiene products affects their participation in work, social mobility, and overall well-being. The use of unsafe alternatives, such as rags, ash, or newspaper, poses serious health risks, including urinary tract infections, reproductive tract infections, and long-term gynecological complications. Apart from the already terrible situation, the recent floods have worsened it and continue to do so. Period poverty in Pakistan remains underaddressed in policy and law.
Menstrual hygiene is neither widely treated as a public health priority nor fully integrated into national education, development, or poverty alleviation programmes. This systemic neglect denies women and girls their right to health, education, and equal participation in society.
Abolishment of period tax
The Writ Petition does not however linger on these aspects, rather jumps to its main demand and seeks the Court’s attention on the imposition of tax on sanitary products (“the impugned taxation regime”). This tax, though seemingly neutral on its face, disproportionately burdens women and girls, effectively penalising them for a biological function over which they have no control. It treats menstrual hygiene as a luxury rather than a necessity, placing essential sanitary products in the same tax bracket as non-essential goods. Thus, it constitutes a form of indirect discrimination: one that deepens the already entrenched inequalities faced by women in Pakistan.
The petition highlights that the tax regime on sanitary products that is both excessive and inherently discriminatory. Currently, locally manufactured sanitary products are subject to 18% sales tax. Imports face an even steeper burden – 25% customs duty along with an 18% sales tax. Additionally, essential raw materials such as superabsorbent polymer (SAP) paper, crucial for producing sanitary napkins, are taxed at 25%. This cumulative tax structure effectively treats sanitary products as luxury or non-essential items, a classification that is irrational given the nature of the product and the demographic it affects.
The consequences of such taxation are severe and regressive.
By inflating the cost of sanitary products, the tax regime restricts access for a significant portion of the population, particularly in rural and economically underprivileged regions.
Women and girls are thus forced to rely on unsafe, unhygienic alternatives that put their health at grave risk. Moreover, this taxation perpetuates a cycle of exclusion: girls miss school, women are deterred from the workforce, and families are pushed further into poverty. The country, by its own taxation policies, reinforces a system in which a basic health necessity is priced beyond reach for many, further entrenching social and economic inequality.
High prices
Under the current fiscal structure in Pakistan, menstrual hygiene products,
specifically sanitary napkins, are subject to an extraordinarily high tax burden. As detailed in UNICEF’s 2023 policy brief, the cumulative contribution of various taxes and duties to the cost of producing sanitary napkins is estimated at 36.08%.
When sales tax on the finished product (currently at 18%) and an additional 3 to 4% arising from value addition and profit margins are added, the total tax incidence can exceed 40% of the retail price. This staggering figure means that for every PKR 100/- spent on sanitary napkins, PKR 40/- is effectively being collected by the Respondents in the form of taxation on a product that half the population needs for basic health and dignity.
This tax structure includes not only standard sales tax but also customs duties,
regulatory duties, income tax on raw materials, and additional custom levies. As mentioned prior, among the most heavily taxed inputs, is SAP paper, which constitutes around 26% of the cost of a sanitary napkin and is currently taxed at 25% sales tax, along with other significant duties. The combined fiscal burden imposed on both manufacturers and consumers renders the product unaffordable for vast segments of the population. As a result, only an estimated 12% of menstruating women in Pakistan use commercially manufactured sanitary pads, leaving the overwhelming majority to rely on unsafe, unhygienic alternatives.
International standards
A UNICEF brief underscores that period poverty in Pakistan is so severe that one out of every five girls misses school during her menstrual cycle, amounting to a full academic year lost over the course of adolescence.
Despite ratifying the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in 1996, Pakistan continues to treat menstrual products as taxable non-essentials, ignoring the growing global consensus that menstrual health is a human right, not a discretionary concern. By failing to zero rate sanitary napkins, or classify sanitary napkins as essential items under the Sixth Schedule of the Sales Tax Act, 1990, or at the very least reduce their fiscal burden through the Eighth Schedule, the Respondents perpetuate a taxation framework that is regressive, gender-discriminatory, and violative of their own constitutional obligations.
The World Health Organization has explicitly recognised menstruation as a critical health issue, not merely a hygiene concern. WHO has called for a paradigm shift in policy and public discourse, framing menstruation as a matter with physical, psychological, and social dimensions that must be approached through a life course perspective, from before menarche to after menopause.
WHO has called for three key actions. First, to reframe menstruation as a comprehensive health matter requiring integrated, sustained attention. Second, to ensure that all women, girls, and others who menstruate have access to accurate information and education, affordable menstrual products, water, sanitation, and disposal facilities, and dignified environments in which menstruation is not shamed but embraced as a natural process. This includes the right to participate fully in work, school, and society.
Third, WHO stresses the need for menstrual health to be formally included in sectoral work plans and budgets, with proper performance tracking and accountability mechanisms. The respondents fails to meet even the most basic of WHO’s criteria for menstrual health.
According to the 2023 Census, Pakistan’s female population stands at approximately 117 million. Of this, an estimated 53%, or nearly 62 million women and girls, fall within the reproductive age bracket of 10 to 49 years, the range during which menstruation typically occurs. However, as reported by UNICEF, only about 12% of these women currently use commercially manufactured sanitary napkins. This means that the actual consumer base is closer to 7.4 million women, many of whom reside in urban or relatively affluent areas where such products are available and marginally affordable.
The petition asks, a vital question: can a product so essential to half the nation’s population be constitutionally taxed like a luxury?