Nowhere to go

This refers to the editorial, ‘Nowhere to go’ (November 20). November 19 has been declared World Toilet Day by the UN. It may not mean much to many people and may be a source of embarrassment for others to talk about, but it has great significance for billions of people around the world who do not have an access to safe toilets. According to Unicef, 2.4 billion people, including one out of every three women, do not have an access to a safe toilet.
In our country, around 41 million people are deprived of this basic facility. Open defecation contributes to diarrhoea, which annually kills about 116,000 children in the country. Diseases like polio are also easily spread this way. Reservoirs of fresh drinking water are also contaminated through lack of proper disposal of human waste. It has been observed that the high dropout rate of girls in schools is due to the lack of toilet facilities on school premises. Building toilets to ensure basic sanitation is not a costly venture. It is absolutely necessary for the government to make sure that safe toilet facilities are provided to all its citizens in order to protect them from disease.
Akbar Jan Marwat
Islamabad