Why 25-year-old Mahnoor Omer took Pakistan to court over periods

Growing up successful Rawalpindi, a metropolis adjacent to Pakistan’s superior Islamabad, Mahnoor Omer remembers the shame and anxiousness she felt successful schoolhouse erstwhile she had periods. Going to the toilet with a sanitary pad was an enactment of stealth, similar trying to screen up a crime.

“I utilized to fell my pad up my sleeve similar I was taking narcotics to the bathroom,” says Omer, who comes from a middle-class household – her begetter a businessman and her parent a homemaker. “If idiosyncratic talked astir it, teachers would enactment you down.” A classmate erstwhile told her that her parent considered pads “a discarded of money”.

“That’s erstwhile it deed me,” says Omer. “If middle-class families deliberation this way, ideate however retired of scope these products are for others.”

Now 25, Omer has gone from cautious schoolgirl to nationalist centrestage successful a conflict that could reshape menstrual hygiene successful Pakistan, a state wherever critics accidental economics is compounding societal stigma to punish women – simply for being women.

In September, Omer, a lawyer, petitioned the Lahore High Court, challenging what she and galore others accidental is efficaciously a “period tax” imposed by Pakistan connected its much than 100 cardinal women.

Pakistani governments have, nether the Sales Tax Act of 1990, agelong charged an 18 percent income taxation connected locally manufactured sanitary pads and a customs taxation of 25 percent connected imported ones, arsenic good arsenic connected earthy materials needed to marque them. Add connected different section taxes, and UNICEF Pakistan says that these pads are often efficaciously taxed astatine about 40 percent.

Omer’s petition argues that these taxes – which specifically impact women – are discriminatory, and interruption a bid of law provisions that warrant equality and dignity, elimination of exploitation and the promotion of societal justice.

In a state wherever menstruation is already a taboo taxable successful astir families, Omer and different lawyers and activists supporting the petition accidental that the taxes marque it adjacent harder for astir Pakistani women to entree sanitary products. A modular battalion of commercially branded sanitary pads successful Pakistan presently costs astir 450 rupees ($1.60) for 10 pieces. In a state with a per capita income of $120 a month, that’s the outgo of a repast of rotis and dal for a low-income household of four. Cut the outgo by 40 percent – the taxes – and the calculations go little loaded against sanitary pads.

At the moment, lone 12 percent of Pakistani women usage commercially produced sanitary pads, according to a 2024 survey by UNICEF and the WaterAid nonprofit. The remainder improvise utilizing cloth oregon different materials, and often bash not adjacent person entree to cleanable h2o to lavation themselves.

“If this petition goes forward, it’s going to marque pads affordable,” says Hira Amjad, the laminitis and enforcement manager of Dastak Foundation, a Pakistani nonprofit whose enactment is focused connected promoting sex equality and combating unit against women.

And that, accidental lawyers and activists, could service arsenic a spark for broader societal change.

The tribunal docket describes the lawsuit arsenic Mahnoor Omer against elder officials of the authorities of Pakistan. But that’s not what it feels similar to Omer.

“It feels similar women versus Pakistan.”

Activists of Mahwari Justice, a menstrual rights group, distributing play kits to women successful Pakistan [Photo courtesy Mahwari Justice]

‘It’s not shameful’

Bushra Mahnoor, laminitis of Mahwari Justice, a Pakistani student-led organisation whose sanction translates to “menstrual justice”, realised aboriginal conscionable however overmuch of a conflict it could beryllium to entree sanitary pads.

Mahnoor – nary narration to Omer – grew up successful Attock, a metropolis successful the northwestern portion of Pakistan’s Punjab province, with 4 sisters. “Every month, I had to cheque if determination were capable pads. If my play came erstwhile 1 of my sisters had hers too,” uncovering a pad was a challenge, she says.

The conflict continued successful school, where, arsenic was the lawsuit with Omer, periods were associated with shame. A teacher erstwhile made 1 of her classmates basal for 2 full lectures due to the fact that her achromatic azygous was stained. “That was dehumanising,” she says.

Mahnoor was 10 erstwhile she had her archetypal period. “I didn’t cognize however to usage a pad. I stuck it upside down; the sticky broadside touched my skin. It was painful. No 1 tells you however to negociate it.”

She says that shame was ne'er hers alone, but it’s portion of a soundlessness which starts astatine location and accompanies girls into adulthood. A survey connected menstrual wellness successful Pakistan shows that 8 retired of 10 girls consciousness embarrassed oregon uncomfortable erstwhile talking astir periods, and 2 retired of 3 girls study ne'er having received accusation astir menstruation earlier it began. The findings, published successful the Frontiers successful Public Health diary successful 2023, nexus this soundlessness to mediocre hygiene, societal exclusion and missed schoolhouse days.

In 2022, erstwhile floods devastated Pakistan, Mahnoor began Mahwari Justice to guarantee that alleviation camps did not place the menstrual needs of women. “We began distributing pads and aboriginal realised there’s truthful overmuch much to beryllium done,” she says. Her organisation has distributed much than 100,000 play kits – each containing pads, soap, underwear, detergent and painkillers – and created rap songs and comics to normalise conversations astir menstruation. “When you accidental the connection ‘mahwari’ retired loud, you’re teaching radical it’s not shameful,” she says. “It’s conscionable life.”

The aforesaid floods besides influenced Amjad, the Dastak Foundation founder, though her nonprofit has been astir for a decennary now. Its enactment present besides includes distributing play kits during earthy disasters.

But the societal stigma associated with menstruation is besides intimately tied to economics successful the ways successful which its interaction plays retired for Pakistani women, suggests Amjad.

“In astir households, it’s the men who marque fiscal decisions,” she says. “Even if the pistillate is bringing the money, she’s giving it to the man, and helium is deciding wherever that wealth needs to go.”

And if the outgo of women’s wellness feels excessively high, that’s often compromised. “[With] the inflated prices owed to the tax, determination is nary speech successful galore houses astir whether we should bargain pads,” she says. “It’s an disbursal they cannot spend organically.”

According to the 2023 survey successful the Frontiers successful Public Health, implicit fractional of Pakistani women are not capable to spend sanitary pads.

If the taxes are removed, and menstrual hygiene becomes much affordable, the benefits volition widen beyond health, says Amjad.

School attendance rates for girls could improve, she said. Currently, much than fractional of Pakistan’s girls successful the 5 to 16 property radical are not successful school, according to the United Nations. “We volition person stress-free women. We volition person happier and healthier women.”

Lawyer Ahsan Jehangir Khan, the co-petitioner with Mahnoor Omer, successful the lawsuit demanding an extremity to the ‘period tax’ [Photo courtesy of Ahsan Jehangir Khan]

‘Feeling of justice’

Omer says her involvement successful women’s and number rights began early. “What inspired maine was conscionable seeing the blatant mistreatment each day,” she says. “The economic, physical, and verbal exploitation that women face, whether it’s connected the streets, successful the media, oregon wrong homes, ne'er sat close with me.”

She credits her parent for making her turn up to beryllium an empathetic and knowing person.

After completing school, she worked arsenic a sex and transgression justness advisor astatine Crossroads Consultants, a Pakistan-based steadfast that collaborates with NGOs and improvement partners connected sex and transgression justness reform. At the property of 19, she besides volunteered astatine Aurat March, an yearly women’s rights question and protestation held crossed Pakistan connected International Women’s Day – it’s a committedness she has kept up since then.

Her archetypal measurement into activism came astatine 16, erstwhile she and her friends started putting unneurotic “dignity kits”, tiny attraction packages for women successful low-income neighbourhoods of Islamabad. “We would rise funds with cook income oregon usage our ain money,” she recalls.

The wealth she was capable to rise enabled her to administer astir 300 dignity kits that she and her friends made themselves. They each contained pads, underwear, symptom medicine and wipes. But she wanted to bash more.

She got a accidental erstwhile she started moving astatine the Supreme Court successful aboriginal 2025, archetypal arsenic a instrumentality clerk. She’s presently pursuing postgraduate studies successful gender, bid and information astatine the London School of Economics and says that she volition spell backmost to Pakistan to resume her signifier aft she graduates.

She became friends with chap lawyer Ahsan Jehangir Khan, who specialises successful taxation and law law. The program to situation the “period tax” emerged from their conversations.

“He pushed maine to record this petition and effort to get justness alternatively of conscionable sitting around.”

Khan, who is simply a co-petitioner successful the case, says that warring the taxes is astir much than accessibility and affordability of sanitary pads – it’s astir justice. “It’s a taxation connected a biologic function,” helium says.

Tax policies successful Pakistan, helium says, are written by “a privileged elite, mostly men who person ne'er had to deliberation astir what this taxation means for mean women”. The constitution, helium adds, “is precise wide that you cannot person thing discriminatory against immoderate sex whatsoever”.

To Amjad, the Dastak Foundation founder, the combat for menstrual hygiene is intimately tied to her different passionateness – the conflict against clime change. The utmost weather-related crisis, specified arsenic floods, that Pakistan has faced successful caller times, she says, deed women peculiarly hard.

She remembers the trauma galore women she worked with aft the 2022 floods described to her. “Imagine that you are surviving successful a structure and you person mahwari [menstruation] for the archetypal time,” she says. “You are not mentally prepared for it. You are moving for your life. You don’t person entree to information oregon security. That trauma is simply a trauma for life.”

As temperatures emergence connected average, women volition request to alteration sanitary pads much often during their periods – and a deficiency of capable entree volition beryllium an adjacent bigger problem, Amjad warns. She supports the withdrawal of taxes connected sanitary pads – but lone those made from cotton, not integrative ones that “take thousands of years to decompose”.

Amjad is besides campaigning for paid menstruation leave. “I person travel crossed women who were fired due to the fact that they had symptom during periods and couldn’t work,” she says. “When you are menstruating, 1 portion of your encephalon is connected menstruation. You can’t truly absorption properly.”

Meanwhile, opponents of the taxes are hoping that Omer’s petition volition unit the Pakistani authorities to travel different nations specified arsenic India, Nepal and the United Kingdom that person abolished their play taxes.

Taking connected that mantle against the government’s policies didn’t travel easy to Omer. Her parents, she says, were tense astatine archetypal astir their girl going to tribunal against the government. “They said it’s ne'er a bully thought to instrumentality connected the state,” she says.

Now, they’re arrogant of her, she says. “They recognize wherefore this matters.”

To her, the lawsuit is not conscionable a ineligible fight. “When I deliberation of this case, the representation that comes to caput … It’s not a courtroom, it’s a feeling of justice,” she says. “It makes maine consciousness a consciousness of pridefulness to beryllium capable to bash this and instrumentality this measurement without fear.”