by Aisha Ijaz, SRHR and GBV expert and AmplifyChange Strategic Advisor
Mahwari Justice was not born as a campaign against the ‘pink tax’, a form of gender‑based price discrimination where products and services marketed to women cost more than items for men. It began in summer 2022, as Pakistan reeled from catastrophic floods that submerged a third of the country under water. When a group of activists got together to prepare relief kits for women who had been displaced, the issue of accessibility to menstrual products became a matter of rights, not charity.
As these young activists budgeted the donated funds towards period products, they stumbled upon a disheartening revelation: nearly a fifth of the money they had planned to spend was in fact not meant for menstrual products at all, but went as a tax to the federal government. In Pakistan, sanitary products, along with other “luxury items,” were subject to an 18% federal levy.
The campaign, however, was born not of a desire to protest a pink tax, but to address a much more deeply rooted crisis. In 2023, Mahwari Justice launched a petition to abolish this discriminatory levy, and the following three years saw an incredible grassroot campaign bring this issue to the attention of the government. On July 1st, 2026, the tax was officially scrapped.
What actually changed?
According to Pakistan’s 2026-2027 fiscal budget, approved in June 2026, the 18% levy on sanitary napkins, tampons, and contraceptive pills was removed, as these items were categorised as “daily necessities.” The announcement was made by Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb in mid-June. He further said that menstruation products were “essential for the health and dignity of women.”
Interestingly, not long ago, his ministry’s position in court had been quite the opposite. Last year, Aurangzeb’s office defended the constitutionality of the pink tax before the Lahore High Court, arguing that it did not discriminate on the basis of gender. That position was challenged by two young lawyers, human rights lawyer Mahnoor Omer and tax lawyer Ahsan Jehangir Khan, who filed a petition in January 2025 arguing that the tax was “arbitrary and violative of the rights to dignity.” Their legal challenge drew on the grassroots advocacy of Mahwari Justice, led by Anum Khalid and Bushra Mahnoor. The campaign went on to gather more than 10,000 electronic signatures in support of the petition, and by July 2025, Pakistan’s Federal Board of Revenue had withdrawn its defense of the pink tax.
This, perhaps, is the most important point. Even though Pakistan’s finance ministry may not realise it, this victory was mostly due to the efforts of private civil society, that over the course of roughly three years turned a subject not fit for so-called “polite” conversation into a major political issue.
A figure that should give advocates reason to think twice before celebrating is the UNICEF report from 2025, which suggested that only 12% of Pakistani women and girls used commercial menstrual products, with the other 88% relying on traditional methods like cloth, regardless of the tax. For the majority of the country, the pink tax was only a small inconvenience as most women and girls did not buy commercial sanitary napkins on a regular basis. Even outside of the tax, retail prices for period products in Pakistan, and especially outside major cities, are inaccessible to most.
Even for the women who do buy commercial sanitary products, it is unclear how the removal of an 18% levy will affect retail prices. According to the experience of Malawi, which also recently scrapped its menstrual product tax, prices in Pakistan may well remain stagnant, as the burden of the tax in many cases is passed on to the consumer. Meanwhile, in Nepal, where the tax was also repealed, prices dropped by nearly twenty percent. It remains to be seen how Pakistan will fare.
What this campaign needs right now is a clear understanding of what has changed, and what has not. While Pakistan’s government may have admitted that period products are something women need on a regular basis, the systemic issues of access, education, and affordability are far from resolved.
The issues that will need to be addressed going forward include:
- Access to products outside urban centers
- Comprehensive sexuality education
- Sanitation at schools, with access to running water and private toilets
Meanwhile, the stigma around discussing periods in Pakistan, which Ms. Mahnoor mentioned in her initial petition, is far from eradicated.
What to watch out for next
Moving forward in the next few months we need to see whether the closure of the pink tax loophole in Pakistan’s fiscal budget will actually lead to lower prices for sanitary products, at the local level. It will also be important to see if Ms. Omar and Mr. Khan’s broader petition regarding another round of import taxes on menstrual products will be accepted for hearing by the Lahore High Court.
Most importantly, perhaps, it will be important to see whether other independent women’s rights organisations, such as Mahwari Justice, will continue to receive funding and support, both locally and internationally, to continue advocating on these issues, even after the excitement around the repeal of the pink tax dies down.
Pakistan has shown that it can turn a somewhat niche women’s rights issue, fit only for discussion in women’s magazines, into a major national issue in less than a third of a decade. It remains to be seen how the issue of affordable, accessible, and dignified menstruation will be further advanced in the coming years, in local Pakistani communities.
Aisha Ijaz has close to two decades of experience in NGO programming and management, with a focus on Violence against Women (VAW) and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) She worked at Aahung, a prominent NGO promoting SRHR in Pakistan, for fifteen years in various capacities which included leading the organization as the Program Director. She currently serves as a Board Member for the Mama Baby Fund, an emergency fund based in Karachi, Pakistan that provides women and newborns with emergency medical treatments and supplies, and the Amir Sultan Chinoy Foundation which is one of the oldest endowment institutions in Pakistan focusing on the advancement of education and health.
