Against the noise

The Pakistani finance minister's recent budget speech, delivered amidst the usual parliamentary noise, included a significant announcement: the removal of taxes on sanitary products. This statement, made with apparent ease on live television, marked a notable shift in public discourse.

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People need time to accept change.

The change, however, was not born from government enlightenment alone. It was the result of persistent advocacy, notably by Mahnoor Omer, a young lawyer who took the government to court over the tax in September last year. Her efforts, recognized by Time Magazine as one of their women of the year, spearheaded an awareness campaign that shifted the battleground from the newsroom to the courtroom.

This victory, two decades in the making since a controversial sanitary pad advertisement in a magazine, signifies progress. The finance minister can now utter the words 'sanitary pads' in parliament, yet the societal discomfort remains palpable. Shopkeepers still discreetly wrap purchases in brown paper bags, as if to shorten the transaction and minimize perceived shame.

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The time, it turns out, was two decades.

While the tax cut is a step forward, its impact is uneven. A 2024 study by Unicef and WaterAid revealed that only 12 percent of women and girls in Pakistan use commercially produced pads, relying instead on cloth and improvised materials, often without access to clean water or private toilets. For these women, the tax cut offers no immediate relief, as they could not even enter the shop to make a purchase. The arithmetic of this victory remains unfinished for those who can access the products, as concerns linger about duties on imported raw materials used by local manufacturers.

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That is the distance between a word winning and a woman winning.