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We are in Hassan in the center of Rabat, the capital of the country. Carrefour Market is the main supermarket in this area. The franchise, which belongs to the Label'Vie Group, has one hundred points of sale in Morocco. It caters to all social classes and offers both local and imported products.
On the sanitary pad shelves, there are pads produced by different imported brands: Always, Nana, Carefree, and Night + from Carrefour, as well as a local brand, Mia. Each brand offers several types of products. These vary in size and level of absorption.
Taking all brands into account, the prices of packages run from 10 to 31 dirhams, while the prices of individual pads range from 1 to 1.7 dirhams. In a country where the average salary is 2,500 dirhams, these prices could be considered generally affordable, but they are still high for a basic necessity. It is estimated that only 30% of Moroccan women have access to sanitary products. This period poverty mainly affects women in rural areas.
In 2018, a young Moroccan woman launched a petition entitled “VAT reduction on sanitary pads to align with basic needs.” Despite the traction it has gained, no changes have been made to date. Several social media platforms, such as 7achak and bentdarhoum, regularly carry out awareness campaigns.
In recent years, a market for alternative products has opened up: that of menstrual panties and washable pads. However, these products remain inaccessible to the vast majority of Moroccan women, as they are only available online or at particular points of sale. Their prices are also quite high, ranging from 150 to 300 dirhams per unit.