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Toilets before temples

THERE is a certain activity every reader of this column indulges in every single day. It is one nobody talks about, the one perpetrated in the smallest room of the house. The toilet.

No, this is not a joke, in spite of the rather jocular opening paragraph. It is a serious matter. In fact, it is deadly serious.

Last week was International Toilet Day. It was started in 2001 by the World Toilet Organisation with 15 member organisations, and has now grown to 151 members in 53 countries. In fact, the general assembly of the United Nations adopted a resolution in July 2013 to officially declare November 19 as International Toilet Day.

Why this attention to a subject we all regard as rather unsavoury, if not self-evident?

Yes, you and I are in the lucky position to regard a clean, sanitary water closet as natural as the sun rising each morning. But, according to the World Toilet Organisation, this does not apply to a staggering 2.5 billion people worldwide, or about 35% of the world population.

Look at the following facts, as recently put together by the International Business Times:

• In underdeveloped regions of Africa and south Asia, more children (2 200 per day) die of diarrhoea than malaria, measles and HIV/Aids combined. Diarrhoea is directly caused by the lack of or insufficient toilet facilities.
• Human waste is a major source of disease. One gram of human faeces contains a million bacteria, 10 million viruses, 100 worm eggs, 1 000 parasite cysts and 50 infectious diseases.
• Hundreds of millions of people do not have clean water and soap to wash their hands after relieving themselves. This is a major source of germs like salmonella, e.coli and norovirus, which cause diarrhoea.
• An estimated 1.8 billion people drink water that contains fecal matter. This causes diseases such as cholera, dysentery and typhoid.
• A billion people have to defecate out in the open, mainly in rural areas, and what facilities there are in urban slums, are often unsanitary and insufficient.
• Lastly, the UN estimates that for every dollar invested in clean water and proper sanitation there is a return, directly and indirectly, of $4.30.

But there is more. It is also about basic human dignity. In India around 818 million people and in Ethiopia 71 million people (according to a report in the London Independent) defecate in public. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, 72% of the population does not have access to an indoor toilet.

The Medical Daily reports that all of this also contributes to reduced physical growth, impaired cognitive function and extreme undernutrition.

Open invitation to rape

For men, this is bad enough. But for women it is also a question of safety and security, because many rapes take place after men have viewed women do their thing in public. Globally, The Independent reports, 526 million women have to defecate or urinate in the open.

All of this is bad enough. But there is still more. Children lose weeks of schooling because of illnesses connected to a lack of sanitary toilets. About 10% of girls miss days at school - or drop out altogether - during their monthly periods when they reach puberty.

And this is a sizeable stumbling block in the way of preparing children for the labour market - and, therefore, for economic growth.
It is not for nothing that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said that he wants to “build toilets before temples”.

In South Africa, we are relatively lucky. In spite of millions of South Africans living in squatter camps, about 79% of all residents had access to proper sanitation in 2010.

This is better than in many other Third World Countries, although by no means satisfactory. However, the crumbling infrastructure - due in part to inadequate planning by the government - means that we will probably not be able to improve much on this. In fact a deterioration, rather than an improvement, is likely.

No, we do not like to talk much about what we do in the smallest room of the house when we visit it. This is one terrain where we believe in acting, rather than talking.

But talking about the broader problem must be done. And then, action of a different kind is necessary if South Africa is to build a future for all her children. Including the poor, and including vulnerable women and children.

* Leopold Scholtz is an independent political analyst who lives in Europe. Views expressed are his own.
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