Nowhere to go

Every year, the ‘World Toilet Day’ is observed internationally to tackle global sanitation crises focusing on the provision of basic human rights that is toilet facility at every household. But unfortunately, all successive governments in Pakistan in the past have turned a blind eye to this crucial issue.

A majority of people living in rural areas of the country are compelled to go in for defecation in the open and the situation in cities and towns is also pathetic owing to a lack of safe management sanitation, as lots of households have no access to underground or covered drains and they dispose of human waste in open drains causing environmental degradation.

A report published in this paper stated that 25 million people in Pakistan defecate in the open, with the country ranking at 9^th amongst the top 10 countries with most people defecating in the open. Two out of every five schools are missing a toilet in Pakistan. The report further elaborates that around 88% of diarrhoeal disease in Pakistan is attributed to unsafe water supply, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene.

In Sindh alone, more than 82% of households are not connected to any drainage system generating stagnant pools of sewage near dwelling areas in villages, according to a Word Bank report. The report also states that “there has been almost no public-sector effort to regulate toilet quality or monitor water quality. As a result, there is a huge variation in the quality of latrines built.”

The Sindh government has, however, reportedly finalised sanitation policy and developed a 10-year multi-sectorial ‘Sindh Strategic Sector Plan 2016-2026 Drinking water, Sanitation and Hygiene’ to provide better sanitation services in the province. Its officials claim that 100% eradication of open defecation from Sindh will be overcome by 2025 and people will have access to sanitary latrines. One only hopes that this will bring tangible results than providing a mere lip service. 

Published in The Express Tribune, November 20^th, 2018.

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