'Close The Gap' is in its fourth year.
Let's reduce differences', the Coop campaign for gender equality and inclusion that cuts goals and renews battles.
First of all, the one to reduce VAT on menstrual products, after the Meloni government's decision to raise it from 5% to 10% (it had been lowered to 5% in January 2023).
This is how the subscription to the petition 'Periods are still a luxury!' starts again.
launched by the Onde Rosa collective in 2019 and supported by Coop since 2021. The goal is to reach one million signatures.
With the slogan 'The tax of being a woman', since January Coop has been relaunching the subscription to the petition on change.org.
“Italy is going through an economically difficult period and there are dimensions that are biologically unavoidable for women, therefore the logic with which the products that compensate for these dynamics are not included in basic necessities escapes us,” observes Maura Latini, president of Coop Italy.
The petition had reached 680 thousand signatures at the end of 2022, when the Meloni government itself had lowered VAT on menstrual products to 5%.
To underline the injustice of the decision to raise it again, Coop relaunched the subscription in January 2024, reaching over 703 thousand signatures and undertakes, from January until the end of May 2024, to "neutralize" this increase by simulating, on branded sanitary pads, the 'VAT at 5%.
Coop then extended its subscription to personalities from the social and economic scene.
Just to name a few: Linda Laura Sabbadini, statistician and columnist, Alessandra Mosca, adjunct professor at Bocconi University, Lella Golfo, president of the Marisa Bellisario Foundation, Andrea Notarnicola, Global Inclusion Art 3, Natasha Maesi, national president of Arcigay, Vera Gheno, sociolinguist, Azzurra Rinaldi, economist.
Names that will appear in an 'Appeal' that will be made official on the occasion of 8 March, International Women's Day, when awareness-raising measures on the topic will also appear in the Coop sales network.