New Delhi: For years, Bushra Mahnoor would often skip school when she got her period, unsure of whether she would have access to a sanitary pad.
Growing up in Pakistan with four sisters, period products in the household were often rationed. A sanitary pad designed to last eight hours sometimes stretched a whole day. And when these supplies ran out, the sisters ended up relying on rags and spare clothing.
“When I knew I might not have a pad and I had to rely on a cloth, those were the times I could not even imagine going to school,” the 25-year-old activist told NPR earlier this year.
Now she is the executive director at Mahwari Justice, a nonprofit in Pakistan that advocates for menstrual health.
She still remembers the disturbing sight of a classmate being ordered to stand at the back to hide a period stain on her white uniform.
“I grew up with a lot of shame,” she told NPR.
Experiences like hers have fuelled a years-long campaign against the ‘pink tax’ in Pakistan—the 18 per cent sales tax on menstrual hygiene products and contraceptives.
Now, the government has proposed abolishing it in its 2026–27 federal budget.
Announcing it last week, Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb said sanitary towels and related products were “daily necessities” that are “indispensable for women’s health, dignity and full participation in society.”
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The lawsuit and campaigns
The decision came after years of campaigns and legal pressure. In September 2025, two lawyers, Mahnoor Omer (25) and Ahsan Jehangir Khan (29), went to court in a bid to remove taxes on menstrual products and classify them as essential goods rather than luxury items.
They argued that the charges amounted to a ‘pink tax’ on women, creating an additional financial burden that contributes to period poverty. They said taxing menstrual products restricted women’s participation in public life. They also argued that the tax violated Article 25 of Pakistan’s Constitution, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex.
“With a tax like this, each day the price of injustice is experienced by half the population,” Omer told CNN earlier this year.
The legal challenge also had roots in a wider grassroots campaign. Founded in the aftermath of Pakistan’s devastating 2022 floods, when activists Anum Khalid and Bushra Mahnoor witnessed women using unsafe menstrual substitutes, Mahwari Justice—their period-rights organisation—launched a petition to remove the tax. The petition has since gathered more than 10,000 signatures.
“A lot of people cannot even afford that cotton to put inside the cloth, so they just wrap the cloth multiple times or sometimes people stuff the cloth with mud or sand to make it absorbent. That is something they do in a lot of tribal areas,” Mahnoor said.
Also read: How Indian courts built a constitutional case for menstrual health infra, one judgment at a time
What is ‘Period Poverty’?
According to UNICEF, only around 12 per cent of women and girls in Pakistan use commercial sanitary products, while others rely on cloth and other homemade alternatives.
The challenge remains significant in a country where nearly 45 per cent of the population was living below the World Bank’s lower-middle-income poverty line of $4.20 per day as of mid-2025. A pack of 10 sanitary pads can cost more than a third of a day’s income for many people and may not last a full menstrual cycle.
Even after the tax is removed, the relief will be neither immediate nor complete.
“The journey is definitely not over yet,” Omer said, adding that their legal petition called for menstrual products to be ‘zero-rated’ to help completely eliminate period poverty.
Still, she described the government’s move as a step in the right direction.
Omer said the finance minister’s acknowledgement that menstrual products are essential items was significant because it recognised their role in enabling women to participate fully in public life. “It’s a matter of dignity. To have these comments being said by a male minister is a step in the right direction,” she added.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)