Hygiene and sanitation for all

To most of us with easy access to toilets the facility is never perceived as valuable-just an everyday necessity part of life. They simply seem to be a place to relieve ourselves and flush it all away. But for almost five billion people around the world who have no access to safely managed sanitation a toilet is a much desired luxury.

To break taboos around toilets and make sanitation for all a global development priority, the United Nations General Assembly designated November 19 as World Toilet Day. The resolution passed in 2013 urged all member states to encourage behavioural changes and implement policies to increase access to sanitation among the poor, along with ending the practice of open-air defecation, which is deemed extremely harmful to public health.

The 2019 theme for World Toilet Day  ‘Leaving No One Behind’ draws attention to those people left behind without sanitation. Toilet saves lives because human waste spreads diseases. Sanitation is also a question of basic dignity and safety for women who risk becoming victims of sexual abuse in an attempt to discreetly relieve themselves at night in remote places.

Unfortunately, the world is not on track to reach the Sustainable Development Goal 6: to ensure availability and sustainable management of sanitation and water for all by 2030. Globally, 4.2 billion people lively without safely managed sanitation – more than half the global population. Over 673 million people still practice open defecation worldwide. Nearly 1,000 children die every day from diarrhoeal disease linked to a lack of safe water, sanitation and basic hygiene

It is embarrassing that Pakistan’s largest city Karachi has less than 100 public toilets for 20 million. Most public bathrooms have either broken down, are dysfunctional or unbearably nauseating. In contrast, India has made considerable progress by building over 101 million toilets in over 4000 cities and villages. An even  more successful sanitation story belongs to Bangladesh where open defecation rates have fallen to nearly non-existent.

Access to sanitation is a fundamental human right but still more people in the world have a mobile phone than access to a toilet. Whoever you are, wherever you live, sanitation is your human right. World Toilet Day is a global observance that we must ensure access to safe toilets and sanitation systems for all.