FG To Subsidise Cost Of Sanitary Pads

The ministry of women affairs said it has embarked on an initiative to subsidise the cost of sanitary pads for school girls in the country.

This was disclosed by the director-general of the national centre for women development, Mary Ekpere-Eta, during a press briefing to commemorate the 2019 International Day of the Girl in Abuja on Friday.

According to her, talks are ongoing with companies who produce sanitary pads to sell at subsidised rates in rural areas.

Ekpere-Eta urged the companies to support the initiative by reducing the cost and making it easily available as it was time to stop the pains that young girls go through wondering how to get pads that they cannot afford.

“We have a menstrual hygiene corner in our programme whereby many of you could just drop in maybe N10 or N20 and there’s an arrangement with most of these companies who produce sanitary pads who will now sell at subsidised rates, which we will distribute to rural areas, especially in secondary schools.

“We are working further to see how the issue of price will be dealt with. But it is a gradual process and we need to find a way to reach the manufacturers and find out how to reduce the price.

“Through advocacy, we encourage as a corporate social organisation from other agencies and private sector, to ensure that every organisation will buy a certain quantity of pads available to schools and send to rural areas as their own CSR,” she urged.

Meanwhile the chairperson of the committee of women development and social development, Wunmi Onanuga and four other lawmakers moved a motion on the initiative at the plenary session on Thursday.