KARACHI - At least 44% of Pakistan’s population does not have access to safe toilets, while 53% women in Pakistan don’t have sanitation options with privacy.
This was unveiled at events organised by different non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and schools to mark the World Toilet Day on Tuesday (November 19), aiming to create awareness among the masses especially children for safe sanitation against infections and diseases.
The organisations working on health and sanitation issues HANDS and others held programmes and took out awareness rallies with school children on World Toilet Day to exhibit the importance of the day for health, besides Climate Change Division, UNICEF, WaterAid and Plan. Raising significance of the day is aimed to continue efforts in making Pakistan an Open Defecation Free country and by conducting research in the sanitation sector which makes affordable and easily available sanitation options a reality for the rural and underserved of the country.
Health and Nutrition Development Society (HANDS) organised a walk for the cause in a school at Yousuf Goth located at Gadap town in Karachi, which was attended by school pupils, teachers and community members, showing their solidarity by doing their bit for this day.
The participants of the programmes emphasised that governments, civil society, national and international sector partners and corporate sector should work together to address sanitation and women’s health in Pakistan.
Marking the 19 November as World Toilet Day is a recognition by UN and as reminder for government that millions of Pakistanis still lacking access to adequate and appropriate sanitation in Pakistan, which also have devastating consequences in particular for the well-being, health, education and women empowerment, said that participants. More than half women population in Pakistan are at risk shame, disease, and harassment as they have no safe place to go for defecation; hence over 20 million Pakistani women have no choice but to go to the toilet out in the open, they added. Globally 2.5 billion people do not have clean toilets; 1.1 billion people defecate in the open of which 43 million are in Pakistan. More than half of the women in Pakistan do not have access to a safe toilet, threatening their health.
Abdul Hafeez from WaterAid Pakistan said “Pakistan is currently 15 years off track from meeting the sanitation Millennium Development Goal target, which was due to be completed in 2015. Every year it is estimated that over 30,000 women and girls die from diseases brought about from a lack of access to sanitation and water in Pakistan. We can and should be doing better.” WaterAid has also issued the report “We Can’t Wait” developed in collaboration with Unilever and WSSC.
School teachers and representatives of civil society organisation Shoaib Jagirani, Shahnaz Shahid, Hands’ manager advocacy Abdul Raheem Moosavi and others advocated about the importance of toilet in their school, houses and locality, stating that Pakistan is among 10 worst countries whose citizens does not have proper access to clean water and proper toilets. The events ended with endorsement by all participants as an oath for ensuring provision of sanitation options for the people of Pakistan with the message that “Toilets for all because we need Happy People, Healthy Economy, Dignified Women and Smiling Children”.
“According to UN statistics, water and sanitation related diseases are responsible for 60 percent of the total number of deaths of children under five years of age around the world. The fact that every 24 hours, 320 children die from diarrhea supports the earlier alarming fact. In relation, better sanitation and hygiene in the toilets can improvise the situation because as per United Nation’s research, an average person spends a total of four years of his life in toilet. This takes us to lack of clean public toilets in Pakistan, where we find only 17 functional public toilets out of 40 in the bustling city of Karachi,” expressed the Vice Chancellor Karachi University (KU) Prof Dr Muhammad Qaiser during his address to a seminar organised to celebrate the World Toilet Day by the Department of Public Administration here on Tuesday.
The event was organised to mark the day as, in last July, Singapore sponsored the United Nations General Assembly resolution declaring November 19th as the World Toilet Day. The Chairman – Prof Dr Khalid Iraqi was of the view that poor hygiene and sanitation problems calls for a change. He said that a change in behavior and dynamics of policy is direly needed adding that hygienic and comfortable toilets also give psychological relief to people. He said that speaking about toilets has always been considered hilarious but we need to take the matter seriously as more than 16000 children die every day due to diarrhea and that negligence in terms of toilets leads to 2.5 billion people in the world which makes 30% of the world’s total population are living without toilets.
Dean Faculty of Management and Administrative Sciences – Prof Dr Abuzar Wajidi quoted Mahatma Gandhi who said that the more pathetic condition of India is that out of every 3 people, one person is living without well-constructed clean toilet. He indicated that almost 1.1.billion people defecate in the outside and in Pakistan, specifically; 43 million people remain deprived of toilets and are forced to defecate in the outside which allows many easily prevented diseases to be contagious.