Bill Gates: From Toilets To Dignified And Healthy Living
By Shura Darapuri
12 July, 2012
Countercurrents.org
William Henry ‘Bill' Gates III— Microsoft founder, tech whiz, philanthropist, innovator and world's second richest man's latest mission is to reinvent toilets. Bill Gates happens to be one of the topmost influential personalities yet he has all the courage and generosity to spend his wealth, especially in the way of welfare of the mankind. He recently claimed to dedicate $42 million for reinventing toilet.
“No invention in the past 200 years has done more to save lives and improve health than sanitation revolution triggered by the invention of the toilet” said Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the President of the Global Development Program at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. “But it did not go far enough. It only reached one third of the world.”
In order to ensure that this basic facility is provided to every individual, Gates recently challenged 22 universities to submit proposals to invent a waterless, hygienic toilet that is safe and affordable for people especially in the developing world, which doesn't have to be connected to a sewer. Low cost dry toilets, if created; it is felt would prove to be a boon to public health. That is because construction of these toilets is expected to reduce the number of children who die each year of diarrhoeal diseases. According to the WHO, improved sanitation could also produce up to $9 for every $1 invested by increasing productivity, reducing health care costs and preventing illness, disability and early death.
In India , approximately 400,000 to 500,000 children below 5 years of age die annually due to diarrhoea caused by improper disposal of human excrement.
But in spite of these shocking figures sanitation matters are generally dismissed in a casual manner. According to the Gates Foundation clear and convenient sanitation services not only improve health they also provide greater dignity, privacy and security to people especially to women and girls.
Around the world having privacy while using bathroom or toilet is a matter of luxury for many. In rural India , especially, western style bathrooms with baths and toilets are considered to be a rare luxury afforded only by the privileged.
Women belonging to lower strata of society either use filthy public toilets or are compelled to relieve themselves in the open. They choose either the early morning hours or night time for the sake of privacy. This makes them vulnerable to physical assaults, rapes and attacks by men and animals.
In the absence of running water the topsoil is generally used by these women in cleaning hands and utensils, which exposes them to faeces borne diseases causing dysentery which is transmitted to their children.
Globally, 1.1 billion people still defecate in the open. Eleven countries including India are home to 81% of such people.
The other countries include most of India's immediate neighbours - China, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh -- besides Indonesia, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Sudan, Brazil and Niger. This practice of open defecation is the riskiest sanitation practice of all, according to World Health Organization and UNICEF. Open defecation practice contaminates the topsoil with different pathogenic bacteria (Salmonella and Shigella) known to cause typhoid, dysentery and several other infectious diseases.
Ills of open defecation were best understood by an Indian girl by the name of Anita Narre in Madhya Pradesh when she refused to go to her in-laws house for lack of toilet. It was found that her grit and commitment to get a toilet brought high demands for toilet throughout the region. Anita's efforts have now made her village Jheetudhana village one of the “open defecation free zones.” She was handed over Rs. 5lakh Sulabh Sanitation Award by Rural Development Minister, Jairam Ramesh. .
In northern India state of Haryana, women and families are turning down proposals if the groom's house does not have a toilet. Walls in villages adorn the slogans in Hindi which reads, “ If you don't have a proper lavatory in your house, don't even think about marrying my daughter”
Ministry of Rural Development in Haryana is said to have been behind the launching of this campaign, “No Toilets, No Brides” as a part of Total Sanitation Campaign.
According to Census 2011, 53.1% (63.6% in 2001) of households in India do not have a toilet with the percentage being as high as 69.3% (78.1% in 2001) in rural areas and 18.6% (26.3% in 2001) in urban areas.
These facts have also been reconfirmed by another report released on 6th march 2012 by the WHO/UNICEF's Joint Monitoring Programme on sanitation for the Millenium Development Goals which has also indicated that 59% (626 million) Indians still do not have access to toilets and practice open defecation. A majority of them live in rural areas.
Within India amongst different states, Jharkhand tops the list with as high as 77% of homes having no toilet facilities while the figure is 76.6% for Orissa and 75.8% in Bihar . All three are among India 's poorest states with huge population that lives on less than Rs 50/-a day.
A study conducted by “The Centre for Civil Society”, a non profit organisation estimated that capital of India had only 132 public toilets for women many of them barely functional compared with 1,534 for men.
Same is the case in other parts of India . A ‘flying toilet' is a common solution in Indian slums to the lack of bathrooms. Women with no access to clean public toilets often use a plastic bag, and then deposit the bag and its contents in the trash later.
Recently, to celebrate International Women's Day, Sahyog Trust a city NGO organised a unique protest under “Occupying Men's Toilet Campaign” in Nagpur , inspired by the Chinese girls protest against shortage of women's toilets in the city. Around 20 women intruded into the men's toilet at Manas Chowk and raised slogans against injustice meted out to them.
In Mumbai “Right to Pee” campaign was launched by 35 non government organisations urging women in Mumbai's civic authority to ensure that service is free for women while it is for men. Rahul Gaekwad, who heads one of the 35 NGOs in the campaign, has outlined three basic requirements for women.
"They should be allowed to pee for free, the public toilets should provide vending machines with sanitary towels, like men have for condoms, and they should have a changing room in the toilets," he said.
A state agency in Kerala has embarked upon a plan to set up 35 e-toilets exclusively for women in city centres and tourist locations. They will be equipped with exclusive women friendly facilities.
With summers, problem tends to get aggravated with lot of water in take followed by irresistible urge to relieve. Lack of clean toilets makes matters worse. It is even more traumatic for the pregnant women, old, sick and the physically challenged.
Studies have shown that women often miss out on opportunities or chose not to take part in something for lack of toilet. It severely limits the mobility of women and their ability to work efficiently whether in rural India or urban India
A study by a non-profit organization, in its Annual Status Education Report for 2010 confirmed link between providing separate toilets for girls in schools and girls drop out rates. Only 4 in 10 government schools according to groups data have functioning toilets for girls and this strongly influences the girls ability to attend school. In Jharkhand, Bihar , Chattisgarh 3 states with lowest percentage of toilets for girls, the number for girls school attendance are correspondingly low. The studies have shown that when children hit puberty especially girls, tend to drop out of schools at much higher rate than boys.
We still lag behind in proper education on waste disposal and infrastructure to handle it. Schools and other educational institutions which are considered to be temples of learning themselves find it difficult to bring into practice the lessons of hygiene and cleanliness imparted to their students. Similarly, in many of the hospitals lack of proper sanitation facilities renders a patient more ill than what he was earlier.
With growing emphasis on “inclusive education” there is an urgent need for adequate “inclusive infrastructural facilities”.
India with all its advancement in science and technology still lags behind in developing efficient and adequate means of waste disposal. Disposal of waste then requires human excreta to be removed manually. In India , the task of cleaning human excreta is generally assigned to the lowest stratum of society by the oppressive caste system. In other words, those occupying the lowest caste position are considered already so “polluted” that they are the only ones considered capable of doing such work. As a result, the members of other castes simply avoid the excreta problem altogether, and leave it to the manual scavengers. People littering the place and depending on others for disposal of excrement are unfortunately considered to be “clean” and “superior” and those cleaning the waste and keeping the environment disease free are looked down upon as “polluting”, “unclean” and “untouchables.”
According to an estimate 13,00,000 Dalits are presently employed as manual scavengers in private homes, community dry latrines managed by the municipality, in the public sector such as the railways and by the army. Nearly 95% of the Safai Karamcharis are Dalits and women.
On the one hand, women of the country struggle for basic amenities i.e., proper sanitation facilities etc. On the other hand, in the same country, some of them “soil themselves in a bid to keep others clean and healthy”
Right education in sanitation and “user friendly” infrastructure is the need of the day. Bill Gates' timely engagements with “reinventing toilets” could certainly work wonders for India . That is because here there is a dire need of “affordable” and “clean” toilets, as proposed by Gates so that every individual especially, women are provided with the basic amenity. It will help them progress unhindered. It will also be able to address the issue of manual scavenging as pollutants are going to be taken care of not requiring to be manually handled. People engaged in such degrading tasks could later be rehabilitated and trained for better jobs ensuring dignified living. Hygienic waste disposal methods could save the lives of many. “Healthy India ” would then be able to reach new heights of prosperity and happiness.
Dr.Shura Darapuri Coordinator, Centre for the study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy, Baba Saheb Bhim Rao Ambedkar University, Lucknow (U.P.), India
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