Water and Development: Children II

'One step away..'

The effects of increasing labour burden to collect water on young children in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Increasing Labour Burden:

With the UN estimating that SSA loses 40 billion hours per year collecting water, this domino effect on the population is complex and multi-folding where there is a need to look at it from a children's perspective.  

In 2012, it was estimated that over two-thirds of the population in SSA had to leave their home to fetch water for both domestic and drinking purposes, placing them at risk of negative health outcomes due to the continuous duty of having to carry the heavy water. In the paper for water collection labour among women and children (Graham et al., 2016), the results show that among households who spend more than 30 minutes collecting water, females were the main collectors in Sub-Saharan Africa. This ranged from 46% in Liberia to a shocking 90% in Ivory Coast. Females are at greater risk of assaults, sexual attacks and gaining health problems as they are naturally weaker than males. Yet at a percentage of 62% to 38% (female children to male children), it was interesting to find that even among children, it was the females who were more likely to be responsible for water collection.

The burden of fetching water comes at an opportunity cost for children as they miss out on education or income generating activities (Pickering and Davis, 2012). Some children are often too young to work or are involved in hazardous activities whilst fetching water that may compromise their physical and social circumstance; limiting their opportunity for self-development through education (UNICEF). By enhancing access to safer water, young children around the world can gain more than 413 million days of health. I personally found this statistic very shocking and was intrigued to find out more about the health effects labour burden has on children. In Geere's (2010) paper on domestic water carrying and its implications for health, qualitative research found that many of the children found a positive correlation between how many trips the children took daily and their health deteriorating. Further empirical evidence is provided by Pickering and Davis' (2012) paper as the results showed that a 5 minute decrease in the time spent on collecting water led to a 14% drop in diarrheal risk and a 15 minute decrease in time resulted in a 41% drop for children under the age of 5. 

When talking about improving the facilities to meet adequate water and sanitation requirements, we often place an emphasis on the quality of hygiene of the implementation and effectiveness of these water infrastructures. However, the research on labour collection among women and children implied that reducing the time cost of collection water (Graham et al. 2016) should be made a priority for water infrastructure investments. 

I personally found this paper a memorable read as I found myself shocked at the percentage of illnesses that could be reduced simply by reducing the distance of fetching water by just a few minutes! As a young adult, I still remember my childhood very well and to think that these young female children are having to go out daily to collect heavy loads of water at the cost of their own health and education and compare it with my childhood, makes me feel very grateful but also incredibly sad for these children. 

Geere JA, Hunter PR, Jagals P (2010) Domestic water carrying and its implications for health: a review and mixed methods pilot study in Limpopo Province, South Africa. Environ Health 9: 52. doi: 10.1186/1476-069X-9-52. pmid:20796292
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.

Pickering AJ, Davis J (2012) Freshwater availability and water fetching distance affect child health in sub-Saharan Africa. Environmental Science and Technology 46: 2391–2397. doi: 10.1021/es203177v. pmid:22242546