ELİF AKGÜL

Istanbul- Turkey has suffered an economic crisis. The ongoing Turkish lira crisis has caused many everyday products to rise in cost. One of these products is the sanitary pad, a basic need for all women. The unit price of sanitary pads has increased by 51.04 percent in Turkey in a year. The price of one pad is about 2 Turkish liras.  According to the Deep Poverty Network, a civic group devoted to helping the poorest, a survey conducted by it among 103 families shows that sanitary pads have become inaccessible to 82% of women. The women of Turkey continue to demand sanitary pads be free of charge or at least an 18 percent tax reduction.

Legislative proposals from HDP MPs

HDP Istanbul MP Oya Ersoy submitted a legislative proposal demanding an amendment to the Value Added Tax Law to reduce the VAT rate on women’s sanitary products from 18 percent to 1 percent.  HDP Ankara MP Filiz Kerestecioğlu submitted a legislative proposal demanding an amendment to the Social Security and General Health Insurance Law and the Value Added Tax Law to provide free sanitary products to women.

Many campaigns have been launched on change.org to demand the tax on sanitary products be reduced and that free sanitary products be provided to female prisoners.

We spoke to HDP Istanbul MP Züleyha Gülüm about this issue. She underlined that a social state should provide sanitary pads, basic needs of women, free of charge.

“Sanitary pads are not luxury products”

Underlining that the number of poor women has increased in recent years, Züleyha Gülüm said that more women have lost their jobs or been paid low wages while the AKP has carried out policies to confine women to home by taking them away from the labor force. “The price hikes have also affected women. They have to pay for sanitary products at a high price. %18 VAT is applied for luxury products such as jewelry and new cars. Sanitary products are not luxury products.”

Recalling that a social state has to provide basic needs free of charge, Züleyha Gülüm said, “Sanitary products are basic products for women so they should be free of charge. The high price of sanitary products mostly affects poor women, refugee women, and female prisoners. The sanitary products should be provided free of charge to them.”

“All women should support campaigns”

Speaking about the campaigns demanding the tax imposed on sanitary products be reduced and free sanitary products be provided to female prisoners, Züleyha Gülüm said, “All women should support the campaigns to make their voices heard and to make the government accept that sanitary pads are basic needs for women.”