Today is World Toilet Day, marked globally to draw attention to the one-third of humanity whose lack of basic toilet and sanitation facilities puts millions of lives at risk every year.
And before you start snickering at the idea of a day for toilets, consider these statistics from the UN: One billion people — a sixth of the world’s population — defecate in the open, with all the attendant health hazards, and a billion people get their water from sources contaminated by human and animal feces.
Overall, 2.5 billion people worldwide — overwhelmingly in developing countries — lack basic sanitation and toilet facilities.
This matters, because poor sanitation is a major cause of water-borne diseases such as diarrhea, cholera and dysentery that kill people, especially children.
According to the UN, 1.5 million children die annually from diarrhea that could be prevented by simply having clean toilet facilities. Improved sanitation, experts say, could lead to a 30 per cent reduction in child mortality in developing countries.
Strange and incomprehensible as it might seem in places like Canada, the fact is that the simple human act of going to the “loo” in many parts of the world can be a matter of life and death. And it is not just the transmission of deadly diseases.
The more immediate threat is the physical danger many people face in answering nature’s call.
There have been cases in many towns and villages in Africa and elsewhere of people being bitten by scorpions and venomous snakes while relieving themselves in fields and woods.
In villages where traditional “pit latrines” are commonly used, the reinforced wooden planks people squat on have been known to break on occasion, sending some poor soul tumbling down. And once they are full, the latrines become environmental hazards, because there is no way to dispose of the waste safely.
For women, open defecation brings added danger. Apart from all the other risks, and the obvious loss of dignity involved in being forced into fields and woods, women become prey to sexual predators. The recent case of the two teenage girls in India who were sexually assaulted and killed in a field while relieving themselves vividly illustrates the danger.
In India, where 600 million people — more than half the population — lack toilets at home, the problem is acute. It is no better in Africa, where about a third of the people defecate openly.
The world certainly understands the seriousness of the problem. In 2000, world leaders committed themselves to a 50 per cent improvement in access to adequate sanitation by 2015.
But action has not matched the promise, and with barely a year to go, that goal is unlikely to be met. The pressure obviously is on western governments to meet their obligations — and so they should.
But it is equally important to hold governments in developing countries accountable. One of the biggest failures of these governments is their inability to provide their people with the basic necessities of life, including basic toilet and sanitation facilities. It is not uncommon in many of these countries to find people living or selling wares near open sewers and garbage dumps.
One can understand why developing countries, with poor resources, would have difficulty handling major natural disasters such as earthquakes or floods — or a calamitous health emergency such as an Ebola outbreak. But providing simple things such as safe, clean and convenient toilets should be well within their capacity. The state of a country’s sanitation is a strong indicator of its human development, and it is a disgrace that governments in developing countries are failing at this simple task.
It costs about $300 to build a toilet, according to the UN, and there is no reason why governments can’t provide this vital service if they put their minds to it. New Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has already taken up the challenge, with promising results.
The world must help, but developing countries need to take the initiative.
Mohammed Adam is an Ottawa Citizen columnist.
