Sanitation
Is anybody really surprised that nearly half of India’s 1.2 billion
people have no toilet at home?
Not really. The India
Human Development report has been saying this for a while. The situation is
worse in the villages, where two-thirds of the homes don’t have toilets. Open
defecation is rife, and remains a major impediment in achieving millennium
development goals which include reducing by half the proportion of people
without access to basic sanitation by 2015.
Is the lack of toilets
and preference for open defecation a cultural issue in a society where the
habit actually perpetuates social oppression, as proved by the reduced but
continued existence of low caste human scavengers and sweepers?
India census: more people have a mobile phone than a household toilet
Of 246.6 million
households, 49.8% forced to used outdoor facilities. 52% of the total
population owns a mobile phone. Jharkhand, Orissa and Bihar the worst for
access to toilets. Change in family nucleus: now 70% of homes are occupied by
couples.
In India, about
half the population has no toilet at home, but has at least one mobile phone.
This is shown by the last census (Census 2011) of the Government. With a total
population of 1.2 billion people, of about 246.6 million families, only 46.9%
can "boast" of having an in house toilet, 49.8%, are mostly slum
dwellers and are forced to relive themselves in the open air, the remaining
3.2% use public services. However, 52% of Indians - including those in cities,
villages and slums - has a cell phone. The data reveals a society split in
half, in which millions of people have access to modern technologies and
consumer goods, while a large proportion of the population can not enjoy even
basic services.
The processed
data from the 2011 census has also registered a change in family composition:
70% of the houses consist of a single couple. A real breakthrough for India,
which traditionally has a large family nucleus, even 15-20 people including
parents, children, grandparents, uncles and aunts.
Sanitation
& Education
Almost 2.5 billion people, two in
every five people in the world, lack adequate sanitation, with children being
one of the largest groups affected by this basic human need. Not only can the
lack of adequate sanitation enable disease to impede a child’s health and
physical development, it can also prevent the child from attending school.
Hundreds of millions of school days are lost each year due to water-related
illness.
Worldwide
there are 120 million primary school-aged children not attending school. Many
of them are unable to attend because their schools or homes lack basic
sanitation facilities, and the majority of them are girls. Sanitation is a key
factor in keeping girls in school. Over half of the girls in sub-Saharan Africa
who drop out of primary school do so because of poor water and sanitation
facilities.◊ Often girls are forced to drop out of school or miss
school once they reach puberty due to a lack of separate latrine facilities and
sanitary supplies.
No water, no toilet: 95% schools
in India lack RTE infrastructure
A review of the legislation’s implementation by the Right to Education
Forum, a civil society collective comprising around 10,000 NGOs and three
networks, has shown that while some progress has been made in implementing the
act, it is far from adequate. The report reveals that 95.2 percent of schools
are not compliant with the complete set of RTE infrastructure indicators, and
in 2009-10 only 4.8 percent of government schools had all infrastructure
facilities stipulated under the RTE Act.
Under the act, schools must have basic
infrastructure facilities like an all-weather building with at least one
classroom for every teacher and an office for the head teacher. A separate
toilet each for girls and boys, a playground and a library for every school
with sufficient reading material, electrification of the school building, ramp
access for disabled students, and computers are some of the basic requirements
that have been recommended under the act. The report, however, shows that one
in 10 schools lack drinking water facilities, 40 percent lack a functional
common toilet while another 40 percent lack a separate toilet for girls.
Sanitation
& Women
Over one billion women and girls
live without access to basic sanitation. Lack of sanitation is detrimental not
only to women’s health but also to their education, community status, and sense
of dignity. With improved sanitation, women experience improved health and
well-being.
Most
women without access to basic sanitation, such as a hygienic latrine, must wait
for nightfall and an empty field in order to defecate in private, a practice
which has serious side effects. Waiting so long to defecate leads to increased
chances for urinary tract infections, chronic constipation, and psychological
stress. Women who go out alone at night are also at risk of physical and sexual
assault
Menstruation,
pregnancy, and postnatal recovery also become problematic if there are not
adequate facilities to properly manage them. Many girls are forced to leave
school once they reach puberty simply because there are no facilities or
supplies made accessible to them, and those who choose to stay enrolled often
miss class during their menstrual cycle, making it harder for them to succeed
academically.
Many
women are leading efforts in their communities to gain access to adequate
sanitation. Women play a vital role in raising awareness about sanitation
issues in their communities, and improved water and sanitation sources are the
first step to empowering women in developing countries.
Sanitation
& the Environment
In developing nations, nearly all
sewage systems are being emptied into rivers, lakes, and nearby streams that
communities use for drinking water. Along with polluting drinking
water sources, discharging untreated sewage pollutes the environment and
affects plant and aquatic life.
Improving
sanitation improves the environment by safely disposing human waste and creates
healthier living conditions for plants, animals, and humans. If the 2.5 billion
people presently living without adequate sanitation gain access to even a
simple latrine, environmental sustainability and health will improve
dramatically.
“Sanitation is more important than independence”
Mahatma Gandhi
• Only
20% of urban population in India has access to flush toilets, connected to a
sewerage system.
• Only
4% have water toilets connected to septic tanks
• 33%
have bucket latrines
• 33%
have no access to any kind of toilet facility
• In
rural India, nearly 89% of the population or about 750 million people which is
more than the population of Europe defecate in the open and expose themselves
to various diseases, nudity and humiliation
•
India is faced with the formidable task of handling 900 million liters of urine
and 135 million kg of faceal matter per day with a totally inadequate system of
collection and disposal
• Low
sanitation coverage in India is primarily due to insufficient awareness of
people and the lack of affordable sanitation technology.
• 80%
of the population has been covered under safe drinking water program but water
borne diseases have not come down for want of sanitation
• The
stinking unclean garbage heaps, a large number of people defecating in the open
or urinating up the walls indicate bad health of the people living in a
decaying society.
• People
in the villages consider defecating in the open a healthy practice. A common
misconception in villages is that toilets are an urban necessity because there
is not much space available for defecating in the open.
• Once
girls reach puberty, lack of access to sanitation becomes a central cultural
and human health issue, contributing to female illiteracy and low levels of
education, in turn contributing to a cycle of poor health for pregnant women
and their children.
•By
simply providing a separate latrine facility for girls, school enrollment rates
for girls have been shown to improve by over 15 percent.
•2.6
billion people - 72 percent and 21 percent of whom live in Asia and Sub-Saharan
Africa, respectively - do not use improved sanitation facilities. Improved
sanitation facilities ensure hygienic separation of human excreta from human
contact.
"Never
doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed individuals can change
the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Mead
Change Begins with you
email : info.kenfoundation@gmail.com
Note: views are personal.