RAWALPINDI: The World Toilet Day was observed yesterday, on November 19, and has been observed on this date since 2001 under the auspices of the World Toilet Organisation, a Singapore-based NGO. This day is observed with the aim to sensitise governments, human rights activists and the public about the importance of toilets, sanitation and hygiene in the socio-economic growth of societies and nations. The day is also marked to make efforts to design, manufacture and provide cheap and eco-friendly toilets. Global studies and researches reveal that more than 2.6 billion people have no access to toilets and have to defecate in the open. The worst conditions prevail in Africa, Latin America and Asia. In India, 51 per cent of people do not have access to toilets and make up 60 per cent of the volume of world population affected by this acute toilet and sanitation crisis. Pakistan is one of those 57 marginalised countries which are off-track for achieving the right to access to toilets, sanitation and hygiene facilities.
Wash-Media South Asia, a body, which works on the issues of sanitation, hygiene and water in the region, finds that a fourth of Pakistanis have no toilets and relieve themselves in the open. According to a Unicef report in 2011, 48 million Pakistanis were without toilets. Pakistan seems helpless in achieving the targets set for sanitation under the UN’s Millennium Development Goals for 2015. Both urban and rural dwellings present a bleak picture when it comes to open defecation. However, in urban areas, particularly in the metropolitan cities, the situation is even more horrible where streets, bus stands, railway stations, hospitals, educational institutions, parks and markets have inadequate public toilets. If there are some, they are either defunct or smelly and filthy. Open defecation on footpaths and roads presents problems for pedestrians. People, mostly male, feel no shame in defecating openly, even in crowded places.
The victims of open defecation contract health hazards, including intestinal, urinary, reproductive and abdominal maladies, as well as skin diseases and psychological complications. As many as 52,000 children die every year due to poor sanitary conditions. A number of women also face health hazards. Women who have to defecate in the open usually delay answering the nature’s call. They eat and drink very little under the fear of having to defecate in the open in daylight. They end up facing problems caused by dehydration and malnutrition. There have also been reports of sexual assaults on women while they had been defecating in the open.
The government and civil society need to realise the gravity of the problem that is caused by the acute shortage of toilets, sanitation and hygienic facilities. Seminars, walks and speeches alone cannot save more than 48 million poverty-stricken people of Pakistan forced to defecate in an unhygienic environment. Only concrete efforts can provide a healthy life for them.
Saleem Shahid Meo
Published in The Express Tribune, November 20th, 2012.
