Marking the World Toilet Day

On November 19, 2016, the international community marked the World Toilet Day. The Day is an opportunity to raise awareness about the 2.4 billion people around the world who live without a toilet and the rates of diseases due to inadequate access to sanitation and unsafe water. The theme for this year’s campaign is ‘toilets and jobs’ which focuses on how the lack of sanitation affects peoples’ livelihoods. For example, the United Nations Organisation (UNO) estimates that in many countries, it creates a five per cent loss in gross domestic product (GDP).
According to UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, “Toilets play a crucial role in creating a strong economy. A lack of toilets at work and at home has severe consequences, including poor health leading to absenteeism, reduced concentration, exhaustion, and decreased productivity.” The UN helmsman therefore said that every dollar invested in water and sanitation leads to $4 in economic returns.
Before the World Toilet Organisation (WTO) came into existence in 2001, the subject of sanitation received little media attention on the global development agenda.  Today, sanitation has become more of a priority, even as the current level of prioritisation is still very different from what is required, given the scale and impact of the sanitation crisis. We therefore join the international community in calling for concerted action to address this massive problem facing more than 40 percent of humanity.

For example, 1 in 3 people in the world still do not have access to a clean and safe toilet, while 1,000 children die each day due to poor sanitation. Moreover, 1 billion people still defecate in the open, even as poor sanitation increases the risk of disease and malnutrition, especially for women and children. Women and girls risk rape and abuse, because they have no toilet that offers privacy. In Nigeria, statistics show that more than 34 million people use the open fields, forests, bushes, and bodies of water as convenience. This situation is responsible for the health challenges confronting the country, many of them fatal, particularly to children.
Today, Nigeria has become one big open space, where people defecate openly and without putting into consideration the impact of their action on the health of others. In many rural communities, people still build houses without water closets or pit latrines. The situation is even more embarrassing in the urban areas, where most houses still lack such basic conveniences.
Even the country’s higher institutions are found wanting in this regard, given that many of their hostels lack adequate toilet facilities, thereby forcing the students to defecate in nearby bushes. Equally too, toilets generally remain inadequate for populations with special needs, such as the disabled and elderly, including women and girls during menstrual period. Similarly, poor sanitation has been linked to skin problems, stunted growth, malnutrition and reduced school attendance.
We therefore call on governments, at every level, and other Non-Governmental Agencies (NGOs) to provide more public toilets in the rural areas and urban areas, and more importantly, create awareness on why people should use the toilet.