1 in 2 Humans Cannot Celebrate World Toilet Day – This Is Why

A Dalit woman stands outside a dry toilet located in an upper caste villager’s home in Mainpuri, in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Credit: Shai Venkatraman/IPSBy Baher KamalMADRID, Nov 18 2021 (IPS) Did you know that half of the world’s population do not have toilets? And that, globally, at least 2 billion people use a drinking water source contaminated with faeces? And that every day, over 700 children under five years old die from diarrhoea linked to unsafe water, sanitation and poor hygiene? This is the dramatic, hushed reality of 3.6 billion people who don’t have one that works properly. “Who cares about toilets? The UN raises this question as the starting point of this 2021 Campaign for World Toilet Day, marked every year on 19 November. The advantages of investing in an adequate sanitation system are immense, says the UN. For instance, every 1 US dollar invested in basic sanitation returns up to 5 US dollars in saved medical costs and increased productivity, and jobs are created along the entire service chain The World Day raises awareness of all these 3.6 billion people living without access to safely managed sanitation, posing dangerous health problems. It is as simple as staggering: when some people in a community do not have safe toilets, everyone’s health is threatened, as poor sanitation contaminates drinking-water sources, rivers, beaches and food crops, spreading deadly diseases among the wider population.   Devastating consequen...
Source: IPS Inter Press Service - Health - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: Featured Global Headlines Health Poverty & SDGs TerraViva United Nations Water & Sanitation Source Type: news