Tax on pads and tampons has been scrapped or cut in 48 nations.News24 Business front pageMore than a quarter of menstruating women and girls around the world - some 500 million people - struggle to manage their periods, often because they cannot afford sanitary pads, according to the World Bank.
Since Kenya became the first country to scrap VAT on sanitary pads and tampons in 2004, at least 17 countries have followed suit, according to research by the Thomson Reuters Foundation.Another 10 countries have designated sanitary products as tax-exempt goods or have exempted the tax on imported raw materials used to make them.
Mainly in Europe, 17 countries have reduced the VAT on sanitary products, with Italy the latest to do so this year. VAT is an important source of revenue for governments – and the reason why many countries still have a tampon tax. In countries belonging to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development , VAT revenue represented 6.7% of their gross domestic product in 2020.
"This is actually the first year that this can happen. In 2023, there are 22 states left and all of them are on a path towards removing the tax," said Strausfeld.
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