'We can't wait..'
The next two following posts will focus specifically on the issues of gender with water and sanitation.
A Gender Issue?
The importance of adequate sanitation and water has been highlighted in the previous posts but I would like to turn our attention to females and sanitation in particular. Improving sanitation could mean ensuring a safer and healthier lifestyle for 1.25 billion females across the world according to the 'We can't wait' report. Produced by WaterAid, UN-hosted Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council and Unilever, this report was created to serve as a reminder that in the world today, 2.5 billion people lack access to adequate sanitation and stresses the impacts this brings to the development of young girls and females around the world. Inadequate sanitation caused by poor infrastructure engenders many challenges in both rural and emerging urban areas in Sub-Saharan Africa as population continues to grow at a rapid rate (WCW Report). Ultimately, the report calls upon governments, international and local organisations, communities to present a more integrated solution between public and private actors to improve access to sanitation.
The importance of adequate sanitation and water has been highlighted in the previous posts but I would like to turn our attention to females and sanitation in particular. Improving sanitation could mean ensuring a safer and healthier lifestyle for 1.25 billion females across the world according to the 'We can't wait' report. Produced by WaterAid, UN-hosted Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council and Unilever, this report was created to serve as a reminder that in the world today, 2.5 billion people lack access to adequate sanitation and stresses the impacts this brings to the development of young girls and females around the world. Inadequate sanitation caused by poor infrastructure engenders many challenges in both rural and emerging urban areas in Sub-Saharan Africa as population continues to grow at a rapid rate (WCW Report). Ultimately, the report calls upon governments, international and local organisations, communities to present a more integrated solution between public and private actors to improve access to sanitation.
Why is this important?
Whilst watching a TED talk by Eleanor Allen on why water is a women's issue, I was startled by a comment which stated that those who believed water to be a woman's issue are 'delusional twats' and 'retarded'. Whilst I would agree that water is not entirely about women's issues as the distribution of safe water and sanitation involves a whole plethora of factors, this comment struck me as they failed to show even an ounce of sympathy for females without good access to water on a global scale.
Graham et al. (2016) Number of households where the primary collectors are adult females and spend greater than 30 minutes collecting water.
In SSA, women are the primary fetchers of water in their households (Graham et al. 2016). The graph shows the number of households where adult females act as the primary collectors of water and have to travel over 30 minutes to do so. Ethiopia has the highest number at 4.7 million and yet it is hard to believe that some people are completely oblivious to the gender dimension and water. Furthermore, a lack of access to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) disproportionately affects women due to cultural and biological factors (Satterthwaite et al., 2012) and these must be explored.
These issues are explored below:
1. The lack of access to adequate sanitation and safe drinking water means that females (who are often primarily responsible for collecting water for household use) have to travel lengthy distances to collect water. Furthermore, females may also have to travel long distances to use clean toilets where both activities exposes females to the risk of assault and sexual violence by groups of males or individuals. Often due to embarrassment and loss of dignity, females tend to go to the toilet at night for privacy, which only exacerbates the existing problems of assaults and rape.
2. When schools are unable to provide clean, safe toilets, attendance for girls drop and thus they miss out on education opportunities. Whilst attending school, having a safe, clean toilet can help children continue their education into higher level education. Adequate sanitation will reduce the percentage of children getting sick from water-bourne diseases and thus won't miss classes as often, causing less breaks between children learning. This is essential for females as they reach puberty as the supply of clean water to wash themselves and basic facilities to support females during this time, can make a huge difference. Irregular attendance affects performance as students fall behind and with females not attending school during their periods, this plays a a greater knock-on effect for girls and may result in them having to drop out of school altogether.
3. Females may often need to take time off work or risk losing their paid jobs during menstruation periods. A lack of basic facilities in the work place places a domino effect on the working female population in Sub-Saharan Africa. With regular absences, this proves to be unstable for the females and unproductive for the economies as they miss out on income generating activities. This lack of economic independence only fuels gender inequality and hindering female empowerment within Sub-Saharan African societies (Water Aid).
4. Females within Sub-Saharan Africa are more likely to be voiceless due to social marginalisation and thus may require different basic services to men but are simply not addressed. A woman's ability to reproduce means that when they are pregnant, access to safe water and adequate sanitation could literally be a matter of life or death. After birth, both the children and females are incredibly vulnerable to illnesses and infections. This is seen in Schectman's (2013) paper as 15% of all maternal deaths within 6 weeks of birth are caused by infections from unhygienic conditions.
Improved sanitation can really mean an end to the issues listed above and help females remain in education and work, investing more into their future and manage a more healthier life and family. However, I mention above that this is fundamentally a social issues that must be recognised by both females and males as the report argues that 'sanitation is both a cause of ongoing inequality between men and women and also a symptom of discrimination against women, and should be addressed to stop the cycle of poverty for both genders' (WMW Report, 2016). There is often a silence surrounding issues of sexual violence against females and thus prioritising safety and privacy for females is vital for safe access to water and sanitation. This can only be tackled when both sexes are able to acknowledge the taboo subject and work together to solve this problem.
In order to provide sufficient resources to educate both males and females of these problems and implement necessary facilities, the role of public-private partnerships must play a crucial role. Due to the lack of funding, governments and local authorities must work together to receive funding for projects that are financially viable and will provide an effective result. What is promising is the recent wave of investment by businesses into Sub-Saharan Africa as they realise the potential business opportunities that exist within these economies. More private-public partnerships are forging to increase the social development yet frequent collaborations are required to gain momentum in really making a difference - especially for the socially marginalised population of females! Governments should be sure to integrate information about hygiene and sanitation into education policies to ensure that the younger generations and females in particular are aware of how to manage situations in a hygienic manner. Furthermore, the persisting inequalities must be addressed for females to embrace their equal rights and gain access to water and adequate sanitation through participation of females.
Whilst watching a TED talk by Eleanor Allen on why water is a women's issue, I was startled by a comment which stated that those who believed water to be a woman's issue are 'delusional twats' and 'retarded'. Whilst I would agree that water is not entirely about women's issues as the distribution of safe water and sanitation involves a whole plethora of factors, this comment struck me as they failed to show even an ounce of sympathy for females without good access to water on a global scale.
 |
| Graham et al. (2016) Number of households where the primary collectors are adult females and spend greater than 30 minutes collecting water. |
In SSA, women are the primary fetchers of water in their households (Graham et al. 2016). The graph shows the number of households where adult females act as the primary collectors of water and have to travel over 30 minutes to do so. Ethiopia has the highest number at 4.7 million and yet it is hard to believe that some people are completely oblivious to the gender dimension and water. Furthermore, a lack of access to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) disproportionately affects women due to cultural and biological factors (Satterthwaite et al., 2012) and these must be explored.
These issues are explored below:
1. The lack of access to adequate sanitation and safe drinking water means that females (who are often primarily responsible for collecting water for household use) have to travel lengthy distances to collect water. Furthermore, females may also have to travel long distances to use clean toilets where both activities exposes females to the risk of assault and sexual violence by groups of males or individuals. Often due to embarrassment and loss of dignity, females tend to go to the toilet at night for privacy, which only exacerbates the existing problems of assaults and rape.
2. When schools are unable to provide clean, safe toilets, attendance for girls drop and thus they miss out on education opportunities. Whilst attending school, having a safe, clean toilet can help children continue their education into higher level education. Adequate sanitation will reduce the percentage of children getting sick from water-bourne diseases and thus won't miss classes as often, causing less breaks between children learning. This is essential for females as they reach puberty as the supply of clean water to wash themselves and basic facilities to support females during this time, can make a huge difference. Irregular attendance affects performance as students fall behind and with females not attending school during their periods, this plays a a greater knock-on effect for girls and may result in them having to drop out of school altogether.
3. Females may often need to take time off work or risk losing their paid jobs during menstruation periods. A lack of basic facilities in the work place places a domino effect on the working female population in Sub-Saharan Africa. With regular absences, this proves to be unstable for the females and unproductive for the economies as they miss out on income generating activities. This lack of economic independence only fuels gender inequality and hindering female empowerment within Sub-Saharan African societies (Water Aid).
4. Females within Sub-Saharan Africa are more likely to be voiceless due to social marginalisation and thus may require different basic services to men but are simply not addressed. A woman's ability to reproduce means that when they are pregnant, access to safe water and adequate sanitation could literally be a matter of life or death. After birth, both the children and females are incredibly vulnerable to illnesses and infections. This is seen in Schectman's (2013) paper as 15% of all maternal deaths within 6 weeks of birth are caused by infections from unhygienic conditions.
4. Females within Sub-Saharan Africa are more likely to be voiceless due to social marginalisation and thus may require different basic services to men but are simply not addressed. A woman's ability to reproduce means that when they are pregnant, access to safe water and adequate sanitation could literally be a matter of life or death. After birth, both the children and females are incredibly vulnerable to illnesses and infections. This is seen in Schectman's (2013) paper as 15% of all maternal deaths within 6 weeks of birth are caused by infections from unhygienic conditions.
Improved sanitation can really mean an end to the issues listed above and help females remain in education and work, investing more into their future and manage a more healthier life and family. However, I mention above that this is fundamentally a social issues that must be recognised by both females and males as the report argues that 'sanitation is both a cause of ongoing inequality between men and women and also a symptom of discrimination against women, and should be addressed to stop the cycle of poverty for both genders' (WMW Report, 2016). There is often a silence surrounding issues of sexual violence against females and thus prioritising safety and privacy for females is vital for safe access to water and sanitation. This can only be tackled when both sexes are able to acknowledge the taboo subject and work together to solve this problem.
In order to provide sufficient resources to educate both males and females of these problems and implement necessary facilities, the role of public-private partnerships must play a crucial role. Due to the lack of funding, governments and local authorities must work together to receive funding for projects that are financially viable and will provide an effective result. What is promising is the recent wave of investment by businesses into Sub-Saharan Africa as they realise the potential business opportunities that exist within these economies. More private-public partnerships are forging to increase the social development yet frequent collaborations are required to gain momentum in really making a difference - especially for the socially marginalised population of females! Governments should be sure to integrate information about hygiene and sanitation into education policies to ensure that the younger generations and females in particular are aware of how to manage situations in a hygienic manner. Furthermore, the persisting inequalities must be addressed for females to embrace their equal rights and gain access to water and adequate sanitation through participation of females.
In order to provide sufficient resources to educate both males and females of these problems and implement necessary facilities, the role of public-private partnerships must play a crucial role. Due to the lack of funding, governments and local authorities must work together to receive funding for projects that are financially viable and will provide an effective result. What is promising is the recent wave of investment by businesses into Sub-Saharan Africa as they realise the potential business opportunities that exist within these economies. More private-public partnerships are forging to increase the social development yet frequent collaborations are required to gain momentum in really making a difference - especially for the socially marginalised population of females! Governments should be sure to integrate information about hygiene and sanitation into education policies to ensure that the younger generations and females in particular are aware of how to manage situations in a hygienic manner. Furthermore, the persisting inequalities must be addressed for females to embrace their equal rights and gain access to water and adequate sanitation through participation of females.
http://worldtoilet.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/WecantWait1.pdf
Graham, J.P., Hirai, M. and Kim, S.S., 2016. An Analysis of Water
Collection Labor among Women and Children in 24 Sub-Saharan African Countries. PloS
one, 11(6), p.e0155981.
Satterthwaite M et al (2012) JMP Working Group on Equity and Non-discrimination final report. JMP.
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