India's Sanitation Crisis Affecting Women
Published on by Water Network Research, Official research team of The Water Network in Social
Over 600 MilPeople,Roughly53% of Indian Households, Still Use PublicStreets and Fields as Bathroomsand the Women of India Who are Paying the Highest Price
Theshortagesof basic bathroom facilities in India leaves women and girls with no option but to venture out, often late at night, to relieve themselves in the open. It is on their way to and from this journey that they face the risk ofhorrific, even deadly, attacks of sexual violence. The world was exposed to this shockingrealitywhen two teenage cousins in Uttar Pradesh were found raped and hanging from a tree just this past summer.
Even though the issue is especially acute in the rural areas, girls and women in the urban slums have horrorstoriesaboutlocalLOCM+4.1%men staring at them, threatening them and shouting lewd comments while they venture out to defecate in the open. "We have had one-on-one fights with thugs in order to save our daughters from getting raped," one mother described to researchers of a2011 studyfunded by WaterAid and DFID-funded Sanitation and Hygiene Applied Research for Equity. "It then becomes a fight that either you [the thug] kill me to get to my daughter or you back off."
In addition to the horrifying threat of assault and harassment, not being able to access toilets has a series of health implications for women and girls from urinary tract to kidney infections, not to mention the sheer stress of not being able to access a bathroom during the monthly menstrual cycle.
This issue denies women from being able to contribute to the economies of their countries. The non-profitWater.orgpoints out that in addition to barriers such as glass ceilings, the lack of adequate sanitation prohibits women from accomplishing "little more than survival."
Today in India, it is easier to get a mobilephonethan find a toilet. How cana country that has more Internet users than the U.S., stillnotprovide its citizens with decent latrines? The issue of building accessible bathrooms is something that can be resolved right now and right away, andit appears as thoughprogressison the horizon.
The country's new Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the issue in a landmark Independence Day speech,vowingthat hisgovernmentwould put "toilets before temples," and eliminate open defecation. And last week, the organizationSulabhInternationalunveiled108 cheap new toilets in the same village where the two girls were raped and hung.
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