Nafisha, a 15-year-old girl from Rasooolpura Slum, Hyderabad, depicts her story how people peep at them while they defecate and bath in the open. Dignity of life being hampered due to not having toilet was something that she and her friends have faced. Open defecation has impacted many kids adversely and maximum children in the slum have got diarrhoea and other diseases related to water and sanitation.
As per the Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP), carried out by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and Unicef, as of 2010, India contributes to 58 per cent of the world’s population defecating in the open. The recent political war between Jairam Ramesh and Narendra Modi has brought back the focus on the lack of basic toilet facilities in most parts of the country. According to the WHO and Unicef, India loses more than 1,000 children of less than five years of age to diarrhoea everyday.
More than 2.5 billion people lack adequate sanitation worldwide especially in developing countries like India. Of these, 1 billion people defecate in the open. Even when diarrhea does not kill, it empties nutrients from the body which in turn, after repeated occurrences results in stunting, stopping children in their growth. Stunted children are more vulnerable to diseases and their brains do not develop as they should. Recent studies suggest a strong link between open defecation and under-nutrition in India, where rates of stunting are high. As much as 48 per cent of Indian children are stunted.
The scenario of availability of latrines in India has improved in the 10 years since 2001, but more than half of the nation’s households still lack toilets. In Odisha and Jharkhand, as high as 78 per cent of the households are without toilets.
The main reason for Indian people still defecating in the open is they are not convinced of the need to stop open defecation because of lack of proper awareness. Building toilets is often not a priority even for people who can afford it. The situation in urban areas is not as serious as in rural areas. India accounts for 60 per cent of the incidence of open defecation in the world. Most girls drop out from schools due to lack of toilets as they don’t feel safe going out in the open. India cannot become a developed country without ensuring that every household and every school has a toilet. Most of the schools and Anganwadis are neglected.
Under the Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC), significant progress has been made; over 9.04 crore toilets have been provided for rural households. However, open defecation by large population in India remains a matter of concern. To accelerate the progress of sanitation in rural areas, the Government of India has designed a paradigm shift in the TSC which is called the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan (NBA).
A sanitation programme should be organised for urban slums and schools in Indian cities keeping the growing slum populace in mind.
This must include a behavioural change practice discouraging open defecation. The programme should include converting existing toilet complexes to start functioning as community-managed toilets and repair toilet complexes and associated sanitation facilities like drains and dustbins.
These activities would contribute to an improved quality of life for families and their children and ensure them the dignity and privacy they deserve. It’s also a social problem; it’s especially a question of women’s dignity.
As for children, an international comparison by Dean Spears shows that the countries where people defecate in the open have the shorted children on an average.
In a country like India, where more than 37 per cent people live below the poverty line, assuring basic hygiene for one and all is a major task for the Government.
When the UN designated November 19 as the World Toilet Day, it urged its member states and other organisations to act on the sanitation issues plaguing developing countries. This call can be fulfilled into action by engaging banks, social investors and foundations to make small town sanitation a big deal.
The ramification of this sanitation shortage in small and medium towns in India has particularly been felt in the context of its impact on children. Of the 1.2 billion Indian people, roughly 112 million live in small and medium towns and 7.6 million young children live in the slums of these towns.
The Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JnNURM), the major urban development policy in India, has focused most of its budget on infrastructure investments in 65 major cities. Only one-fifth of the budget is allocated towards small and medium towns where one-third of the urban population resides.
Furthermore, this investment was focused mainly on improving the water supply rather than sanitation.
Maharashtra, despite being the most urbanised Indian State, 46.9 per cent of its households lack a toilet; 13 per cent of people depend on public toilets and 34 per cent defecation in the open.
Odisha:
Over the period 1991-2001, urban population has grown nearly twice than the State population. However, starting from a low base of urbanisation, while these rates appear high, the challenges posed by absolute numbers do seem manageable.
The urban sanitation scenario is a cause for concern as 40 per cent of urban households do not have access to a latrine; another 11 per cent of households have to share latrines with others.
The 2011 Census stated that an overwhelming 49.6 per cent of the State’s households do not have any kind bathing facility and about 1.7 lakh households (48.33%) or 8.5 lakh people of the slum defecate in the open. The impacts of unsafe sanitation conditions and behaviour are immense that adversely affect the urban poor, women and children.
Odisha has developed a sanitation strategy. All the goals of this strategy are to be achieved over a period of six years (2012-18). looking at the budget allocation under this head in the department gives a gloomy picture.
The allocation made for this purpose was Rs 18.77 crore (1.33%) during 2012-13 which was reduced to a mere Rs 50 lakh for 2013-14 (0.02%). It is a fact that children of around 20 per cent households in cities are still deprived of toilet facility for which they resort to open defecation.
(The writer is the communication officer of Humara Bachpan, a national campaign working on living conditions for young children growing up in Indian urban poverty. He can be reached in his mail id ananta@humarabachpan.org +91 9040132131 )