Nadia Mohamed (25, who works at a food industry company) was surprised that the price of the sanitary pads she uses had doubled. At the end of every month, as soon as she receives her salary, she buys her basic personal supplies first, then pays her remaining bills and financial obligations, especially the savings circle she organised with others to help her prepare for her wedding, scheduled for the end of this summer.
Mohamed complains about the rising cost of sanitary pads, especially her preferred type, which helps her work more comfortably during her period than other types, particularly as her job requires intense, continuous movement for more than ten hours a day. She explains that after the price of her preferred product rose, she had no option but to look for a cheaper alternative.
What makes matters harder is that her salary does not rise at the same rate as prices, so when her period comes it brings not only the usual physical and psychological pain but also financial pressure and the fear of being unable to afford sanitary pads for the whole period, pads that give her a sense of security when she is out.
She tells Zawia3 that she turned to many of her friends to find a good type that suits her limited budget, hoping the cost will not rise again, as that would put her in great embarrassment and a difficult position, as she describes it.
Last year, the Tadwein Center for Gender Studies, in cooperation with the “Sanad Initiative for Legal Support for Women” and the “Baraah Amen” foundation, launched a campaign titled “A Necessity, Not a Luxury”, to shed light on the concept of period poverty and raise awareness of the risks of not using sanitary pads for various reasons.
About 500 million women and girls around the world, including 107 million women and girls living in the Arab region, suffer from economic poverty linked to menstruation, as their economic circumstances do not allow them access to menstrual products, according to estimates by the United Nations Population Fund.
Since the beginning of this year, 2024, the average price of sanitary pads has risen by up to 100% for some locally made types, amid a severe shortage of imported products and difficulty obtaining them.
Poverty in Egypt is expected to rise in 2025, possibly reaching 36% of the population, while estimates indicate that the poor made up about 33.3% of the population (112.7 million people) in 2023, compared with 29.5% in 2019, meaning that about 37 million people were living in poverty in 2023, which increases the number of women suffering from period poverty in Egypt.
Period poverty is a term introduced by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in its report published in 2021, meaning difficulty in obtaining menstrual hygiene products such as pads. Although three years have passed since the term was coined, there are still women who cannot afford these needs.
For her part, Yasmine Abu Al-Azm, an obstetrician and gynaecologist at Belqas Central Hospital, tells us that the correct way to use sanitary pads is to change them every four to five hours at most, to avoid prolonged dampness, noting that many pads contain fragrances and perfumes, but these types should be avoided because they cause skin allergies.
As for the many women turning to alternatives to sanitary pads as prices keep rising, Abu Al-Azm explains that using cloth instead of sanitary pads causes great harm because of the high level of dampness it creates, increasing the risk of vaginal and skin infections. The doctor also comments on women using children’s nappies as an alternative to sanitary pads: “They have a high absorption capacity, which helps women with heavy periods, provided the nappies are of good quality.”
She goes on to say that poorly made sanitary pads or nappies used by women during menstruation expose the body to absorbing harmful substances, causing health damage in the medium and long term.
Abu Al-Azm stresses the need to treat sanitary pads as a basic personal care item and to work to make them available, in order to confront this problem and protect women’s general health.
Sanitary Pads Are Not a Luxury
In five countries, including Egypt, adolescent girls and women in urban areas are more likely to use sanitary pads than their counterparts in rural areas, who are more likely to use cloth. One in five adolescent girls and women in rural areas did not use any materials, compared with one in 20 in urban areas, according to data from the World Health Organization and UNICEF.
The Tadwein Center for Gender Studies’ campaign came amid a lack of data on period poverty in Egypt, to shed light on the suffering of women and girls who cannot afford these basic female needs because of their limited budgets amid the current economic crisis and the accompanying rise in the prices of all basic goods and products. This may push women and girls to replace menstrual supplies with unsafe alternatives, or to use a single sanitary pad for long hours, alternatives that may harm their health, cause very serious health consequences that can lead to death, and limit their participation in all aspects of life.
The campaign stressed women’s human right to obtain menstrual supplies at nominal prices or free of charge, and the need for these supplies to be available and accessible to all women and girls of all ages, or to be included in the health insurance system, as some countries have done.
Somaya Kamal’s dilemma has grown considerably, especially as she is the mother of two daughters, and all three share sanitary pads. She says: “I used to buy two large packs a month, taking advantage of offers to cover our needs, but after pad prices rose I had no choice but to give up using sanitary pads myself so I could provide them for my daughters, especially as they could not use any other method.”
Somaya tells Zawia3 that she turned to cheap children’s nappies during her period because she has heavy bleeding, which required her to change sanitary pads every three hours, whereas she can use a nappy for longer, which helped her save money and also keep pads for her daughters to meet their essential needs.
She adds that although she turned to children’s nappies, their prices also rise from time to time, forcing her to buy them by the piece because she cannot afford a whole pack. She complains of skin allergies after every period since she began using these nappies, which she attributes to the poor quality of the type she uses, the one her financial circumstances impose on her.
Primitive Alternatives
Egypt classifies sanitary pads and other menstrual personal care products under “body care products”, placing them in the same category as luxury soap, shampoo, shower gel and other products regarded as “provocative goods”. Customs duties on them reach about 60%, in addition to taxes and fees imposed later, which mean huge increases in the prices paid by the women who consume these products.
Consumer groups in Egypt vary, and the poor are the most affected by price rises. Among them is Rasha, who lives in a small room with a bathroom at the entrance of a residential building. She has never used sanitary pads, explaining that she works with her husband serving the building’s residents and cleaning the stairs, and that none of their income is set aside for sanitary pads, because they can barely provide for their two children. So she uses pieces of cloth during her period, explaining that she gets them from worn-out old clothes no longer in use, which she cuts and sews so she can use them, and boils them every month in water with chlorine, as she describes.
Rasha tells Zawia3 that during her period she deliberately goes out less for fear that the cloth will fall or that stains will leak onto her outer clothes, explaining that if she has to go out she uses one of the children’s nappies she buys by the piece, so she can move safely.
She says: “I have often wished I could try those pads, even once, to enjoy the feeling I hear some of the women in the building describe when they tell each other about the best type. Talk about sanitary pads has increased a lot recently with the price rises that have affected everything.”
For her part, Magda Soliman, reproductive health officer at the Center for Egyptian Women’s Legal Assistance (CEWLA), explains that decision-makers and officials treat sanitary pads as luxury products, although they are essential basics and personal hygiene supplies for women, linked to their physiology.
Soliman goes on: sanitary pad prices have risen markedly, with some types rising by 150%, forcing many women to give up using them. She points out that other alternatives, such as the children’s nappies some women used to turn to, have risen in price by almost the same rate, adding that using cloth during menstruation causes severe skin diseases in the short term, and urinary tract and cervical infections in the long term, not to mention the psychological harm resulting from these ways of dealing with menstruation.
The CEWLA reproductive health officer warns against using poorly made sanitary pads because of the significant health harms and risks they carry, especially as they are made from materials that are unsafe for health.
She proposes activating a service to provide women’s basic supplies, from schools to toilets in public places and inside companies and institutions, as well as granting working women one paid day of leave a month during their period, because of the severe physical and psychological pain they suffer at that time.
