Deputy Minister for Education, Dr. Clement Apaak, says Ghana’s free sanitary pad policy is helping to protect vulnerable schoolgirls from teenage pregnancy by reducing their exposure to exploitative relationships linked to period poverty.
He said menstrual poverty remains a hidden challenge that exposes many schoolgirls to unsafe and transactional relationships, particularly in families struggling to meet basic needs.
“Poverty tends to be the trigger; it is the most important factor that can cause girls to become pregnant at a stage of their lives when they are not ready,” Dr. Apaak said during a UNESCO ministerial dialogue in Livingstone, Zambia.
According to him, some girls who cannot afford sanitary pads are sometimes drawn into transactional relationships with men and boys who offer to provide them.
“Because they cannot afford the pads, they turn to men and boys who promise to buy them these pads, and in the process it becomes transactional,” he explained.
Dr. Apaak said the government introduced the free sanitary pad policy to ease the burden on struggling families and protect girls from exploitation linked to menstrual hygiene needs.
He disclosed that since the start of the programme, more than 12 million packs of sanitary pads have been distributed to schoolgirls nationwide.
“Since we took over the reins of governance, we introduced the free sanitary pad policy. Last year, we procured and supplied 12.2 million packs of pads to all our girls from primary school to secondary school who need them,” he said.
Dr. Apaak added that the programme will continue this year as part of broader efforts to improve girls’ welfare, reduce teenage pregnancy and improve school retention.
“We are just getting into the second year, and this year we are doing the same,” he said.
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