Education ministry deputy executive director Edda Bohn says all schools in the country should invest a certain amount towards a dignity project, whereby girls benefit from sanitary products.
The dignity project initiative also benefits male pupils, who receive items such as soap and other products to improve their hygiene.
“Every school is obliged to start a dignity project and invest a certain amount specified per child into this project, where they create a revolving fund of some sort in terms of buying stock for the girl child – and for the boy child to get soap and deodorant, and reinstate the dignity of both,” Bohn said yesterday during the handover of sanitary products to the education ministry by the Communications Regulatory Authority of Namibia.
CRAN donated disposable and reusable sanitary products for 770 learners at Ondao Mobile Primary School in the Kunene region, Ndoro Memorial Secondary School in Zambezi, Kaisosi Primary School in the Kavango East and Hanganeni Primary School in Erongo.
“Each girl at the schools will receive a parcel of disposal and reusable pads. The reusable ones can last longer up to four years, especially for those in the hostels,” said CRAN’s spokesperson Katrina Sikeni.
CRAN CEO Emilia Nghikembua said they also endorsed a motion by deputy information minister Emma Teofelus, which called on parliamentarians to discuss and debate possible tax exemption or tax reduction on all menstrual products in Namibia.
The young MP proposed that MPs look at the possibility of either imposing a tax exemption on all menstrual hygiene products or a zero tax, which she said would technically mean these products are subjected to taxation but no tax is charged.
“The Namibian girl child must be kept in school – and as CRAN, we equally endorse the tabled motion in the National Assembly, seeking for the amendment of tax laws that will allow for the imposing of the tax exemption on all menstrual hygiene products by deputy ICT minister Emma Teofelus,” she said.