An open drainage ditch in Ankorondrano-Andranomahery, Madagascar. Credit: Lova Rabary-Rakontondravony/IPS

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 2 2015 (IPS)

When the United Nations hosted a panel discussion last year urging its partners to “break their silence” on open defecation, Singapore’s deputy permanent representative Mark Neo was outspoken in his characterisation: “Open defecation is a euphemism. What we are talking about is shitting in the open.”

And over one billion people worldwide do so every day.“This is a crucial step towards achieving better health, reducing poverty and ensuring environmental sustainability for the most marginalized people in the world.” -- Chris Williams

In India alone, there are nearly 600 million people (out of a total population of over 1.2 billion) without access to sanitation, according to the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) based in Geneva.

Currently, about 35 countries, mostly in Africa and Asia, fall into that category, including Niger, Sierra Leone, Mali, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Guinea, Liberia, Bangladesh, Madagascar, Nepal, Angola, Pakistan, Myanmar, Cambodia, Congo, India and Laos, among many others.

A new study by the Geneva-based Global Sanitation Fund (GSF), released Tuesday, says 2.5 billion people, or 40 percent of the global population, lack access to decent sanitation, including more than a billion who defecate in the open.

Still there is progress: nationally-led sanitation programmes supported by the GSF have enabled 4.2 million people to have improved toilets; seven million people and more than 20,500 communities to be free of open-defecation; and eight million people with handwashing facilities.

“These results prove that we are moving closer to our vision of a world where everybody has sustained sanitation and hygiene, supported by safe water,” said Chris Williams, executive director of WSSCC.

“This is a crucial step towards achieving better health, reducing poverty and ensuring environmental sustainability for the most marginalised people in the world.”

The study says diarrheal disease, largely caused by poor sanitation and hygiene, is a leading cause of malnutrition, stunting and child mortality, claiming nearly 600,000 under-five lives every year. Inadequate facilities also affect education and economic productivity and impact the dignity and personal safety of women and girls.

The governments of Australia, Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom have contributed to the GSF since its establishment by WSSCC in 2008.

Close to 105 million dollars has been committed for 13 country programmes, and aimed at reaching about 36 million people.

The GSF says the results have been achieved due to the work of more than 200 partners, including executing agencies and sub-grantees composed of representatives from governments, international organisations, academic institutions, the United Nations and civil society.

One of the strongest success factors in the GSF approach is that it allows flexibility for countries to develop their programmes within the context of their own institutional framework and according to their own specific sanitation and hygiene needs, sector capacity and stakeholders, says a press release.

This implementation methodology is used to reach large numbers of households in a relatively short period of time and is vital for scaling up safe sanitation and hygiene practices.

The GSF has been described as ” a pooled financing mechanism with the potential to further accelerate access to sanitation for hundreds of millions of people over the next 15 years.”

Between 2013 and 2014 alone, the GSF reported an almost 90 percent increase in the number of people living open-defecation free in target regions of 13 countries across Africa and Asia.

During this same period, the GSF also supported a 55 percent increase in the number of people with access to improved toilets in those same areas.

The United Nations system has identified global funds as an important tool to enable member countries to achieve their national development targets, including those for sanitation and hygiene.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@aol.com

Strengthening women’s positions, and giving them the opportunity to fully participate in society is necessary if we are to achieve the SDG targets. Credit: Farooq Ahmed/IPS

By Chris Williams and Kersti Strandqvist
NEW YORK, May 14 2015 (IPS)

Every month, more than two billion women around the world menstruate, and yet the topic is still shrouded by a veil of silence. While some girls celebrate their period as the first step into womanhood, many girls in developing or emerging countries are shocked and ashamed of their monthly cycles.

Recent studies have found that over 70 percent of girls in India had no idea what was happening to them when they started their first period; 50 percent of girls in Iran believe that menstruation is a disease; and over 50 percent of girls in Ethiopia miss between one and four days of school per month due to menstruation.In every country, the veil of silence around menstruation contributes to discrimination that can hold women back in their personal lives and professional careers.

Even in the United States, where menstruation management is taught in schools and girls typically have access to the necessary resources and infrastructure, the topic remains a taboo, preferably not addressed in polite circles. Real-life examples abound.

In March, Instagram twice removed a photo of a fully clothed woman with two visible spots of blood, because it violated their ‘community guidelines.’ In January, tennis star Heather Watson shocked the world by ascribing her Australian open defeat to ‘girl things.’

In every country, the veil of silence around menstruation contributes to discrimination that can hold women back in their personal lives and professional careers.

It is time for the global community to break its silence on menstruation so that women and girls can discuss the topic without shame, and reap the rewards for their health, education and quality of life.

The taboo surrounding menstruation is a barrier to equal participation and opportunities for women. More importantly, this neglect of a woman’s need to manage their menstruation inside and outside the home is a violation of a host of human rights – in many countries, menstruating women are banned from praying, cooking, or sleeping near their family.

Current research shows that menstrual education in every country continues to provide girls with mixed messages; on the one hand it is a normal, natural event, however girls are also taught that it should be hidden.

This taboo on female development has also had unintended consequences for U.S. aid priorities – according to development experts, the U.S. government will remain reluctant to fund education initiatives in developing or emerging countries until there is a proven link between toilets in schools or menstrual management education to an improvement in attendance rates or performance in school.

The countdown has begun to the United Nations release of the Sustainable Development Goals, and women’s empowerment is expected to take center stage as a cross-cutting issue that will lift the development of society as a whole.

Strengthening women’s positions, and giving them the opportunity to fully participate in society is necessary if we are to achieve these targets.

The ambitious goal of ensuring equality for women and girls requires a multi-stakeholder approach, with collaboration from communities, government, U.N. agencies, private sector, academia, NGOs, media and others. It is time for all sectors to work together to ensure that menstruation is far higher on the development agenda.

By leveraging public-private partnerships, a unique combination of funding can ensure that market research from the private sector can efficiently contribute to the effectiveness of aid and investment.

This week, the global movement to break the silence on menstruation comes to the U.S. as Team SCA, an all-women crew of sailors participating in the round-the-world Volvo Ocean Race, docks in Newport, Rhode Island. The team is promoting the message of women’s empowerment.

With support from the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC), a U.N. body dedicated to achieving safe sanitation and hygiene for the most vulnerable through community-led approaches, Team SCA has participated in several menstrual hygiene management training sessions during the race.

Practical, sustainable change for women and girls can be achieved through research, innovation and education. Governments, community leaders, opinion leaders, and global citizens must speak out to change attitudes, upend customs that restrain menstruating women and girls, and promote basic education about periods.

Menstrual hygiene management is only the beginning but it is a critical first step… we need to break the silence across the female lifecycle, from puberty to menopause to old-age.

Eliminating these taboos is an international responsibility, and an opportunity for the U.S. to lead by example, by increasing awareness of this monthly global human rights violation, as well as holding an open and honest discussion about its own taboos.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Excerpt:

In Nepal, 38 percent of the population still defecates in the open. Credit: Naresh Newar/IPS

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, May 28 2014 (IPS)

At the height of his election campaign last October, Narendra Modi, India’s Hindu nationalist leader, briefly set aside his spiritual aspirations when he told a surprised audience that economic development should take precedence over religion.

“Toilets before temples,” pleaded Modi, the newly-elected prime minister of India, a country which has been in the throes of a perpetual sanitation crisis, and where open defecation is an all-too-common sight in villages and urban slums.

As chief minister of the state of Gujarat, Modi oversaw the installation of some 76,000 lavatories in schools “so that more girls could study,” according to an article in the Economist last month.

"The situation [...] is most difficult in India where there are nearly 800 million people without basic sanitation, and 600 million of those are still practising open defecation." -- Barbara Frost, chief executive at the London-based WaterAid
As if taking its cue from Modi, or by happy coincidence, the United Nations Wednesday formally launched a global campaign to help improve access to toilets for the 2.5 billion people without basic level sanitation.

“It is time to talk about open defecation,” said U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson, “and to discuss the facts, the consequences and the solutions.”

And it is time to talk about the many countries around the world where community members, local leaders and politicians are taking positive action to end this practice, he added.

According to the United Nations, about 82 percent of the 1.1 billion people practising open defecation live in just 10 countries: India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Sudan, Niger, Nepal, China and Mozambique.

By 2025, the practice of open defecation must be totally eliminated, the United Nations has vowed.

Barbara Frost, chief executive at the London-based WaterAid, told IPS South Asia still has the most people without basic sanitation, more than one billion in 2012, although sub-Saharan Africa also has a large number, just fewer than 644 million.

“The situation by sheer numbers is most difficult in India where there are nearly 800 million people without basic sanitation, and 600 million of those are still practising open defecation,” she said.

In sub-Saharan Africa, Nigeria is bucking the trend and has seen large increases in open defecation between 2000 and 2012.

“Many African nations are seeing the number of people without basic sanitation drop, but in Nigeria this is increasing,” Frost said.

Chris Williams, executive director at the Geneva-based Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC), told IPS open defecation is a serious health risk in the world’s poorer countries, spreading disease, effecting economic productivity and claiming lives unnecessarily.

“People who do not have access to a hygienic toilet and a place to wash their hands are exposed to an array of faecally transmissible and potentially deadly diseases that with improved sanitation are easily preventable,” he said.

“That is why we have to make equitable access to improved sanitation a key priority in the post-2015 development agenda,” Williams added.

He also said sanitation and hygiene are motors which drive health, and social and economic development around the world.

“An environment that lacks sanitation and clean water is an environment where achieving other development goals is an impossible dream,” declared Williams.

Mark Neo, deputy permanent representative of Singapore, a country that spearheaded the move to declare Nov. 19 ‘World Toilet Day’ at the United Nations, told IPS the lack of basic sanitation profoundly impacts key constituencies like women and girls.

For example, without proper toilet facilities, women and girls constantly risk rape and sexual assault while defecating in the open, and pubescent girls drop out of school because of the lack of privacy, he said.

Accordingly, for its commemoration of World Toilet Day this year, Singapore is planning an event focusing on the unique and particular challenges of open defecation for women and girls.

“There are taboos within taboos, so we want to focus on the unique vulnerabilities of women without access to basic sanitation and toilets,” he added.

Neo said the U.N.’s Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target of providing basic sanitation is lagging behind other MDGs and is unlikely to be achieved by 2015.

Therefore, it is critical that sanitation remains prominent in the post-2015 development agenda both as a stand-alone goal and mainstreamed into other goals under the agenda.

The U.N.’s campaign against open defecation will run through the end of 2015.

Mother, an independent advertising agency in the United Kingdom, has given time and expertise on a pro bono basis to develop campaign ideas and materials, according to the United Nations.

Where there is open defecation, pathogens spread quickly, causing diarrhoea, cholera, bilharzia (caused by freshwater worms) and other diseases, according to WaterAid.

More than 1,400 children die each day of diarrhoeal diseases linked to a lack of safe water, basic sanitation and good hygiene.

Williams told IPS the sanitation movement supports millions each year to build a toilet for their household, assisted by programmes such as the WSSCC’s Global Sanitation Fund and development partners such as the World Bank and the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF.

“Together we are helping rural communities to stop open defecation and wash their hands of disease spread by poor sanitation once and for all.”

Between 1990 and 2012, open defecation decreased from 24 percent to 14 percent globally. South Asia saw the largest decline from 65 percent to 38 percent, according to WSSCC.

But there are stark disparities across regions, between urban and rural areas, and between the rich and the poor and marginalised.

The vast majority of those without sanitation are poorer people living in rural areas. Yet, progress on sanitation has often increased inequality by primarily benefitting wealthier people, according to WSSCC.

WSSCC’s Global Sanitation Fund (GSF) has helped support 2.7 million people using toilets, enabled 3.7 million people in more than 14,400 communities to live in cleaner environments free of open defecation and helped 4.2 million people wash their hands with soap.

The GSF has committed 86 million dollars in 11 country programmes worldwide, according to WSSCC.

(END)

Nasreen Jehan, a high school student in eastern India, studies a leaflet on menstrual hygiene. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

By Stella Paul
BETTIAH, India, May 28 2014 (IPS)

Fifteen-year-old Nasreen Jehan, a student in the eastern Indian state of Bihar, proudly flaunts a yellow and red beaded bracelet encircling her wrist. This humble accessory, she tells IPS, is her most treasured possession.

“It helps me keep track of my menstrual calendar,” says the 9^th-grader, who attends a government-run, all-girls school in a town called Bettiah. “Also, it helps me talk about menstruation with my friends.”

Of the 24 small beads that comprise the delicate adornment, six are read, symbolising the days of her monthly period. Jehan made the bracelet herself at a menstrual hygiene workshop in Bettiah last year, organised by Nirmal Bharat Yatra (NBY) – a nationwide sanitation campaign spearheaded by the Geneva-based Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC).

Educators at the workshop talked Jehan and her peers through the biological process of menstruation, offering tips on how to properly wash and dry menstrual cloths if sanitary napkins are unavailable.

“My mother and my aunt never stepped out of the house when they had their periods. That was our family tradition." -- Soumya Selvi, a 10th-grader in southern India
Finally, they gave Jehan the most important message of all: that menstruation is just as natural as hunger or sweating, and that there is nothing to be ashamed or afraid of.

It is rudimentary advice, but crucial in a country like India, where menstruation has long been perceived as a social taboo. In many parts of the country, a woman on her period becomes essentially “untouchable” – banned from cooking, handling water or entering places of worship.

According to a study undertaken by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) back in 2012, some 225 million adolescent girls attend one of the 1.37 million schools spread across the country. Of them, roughly 66 percent have no knowledge of menstruation before they reach puberty.

A full 88 percent of these girls do not have access to what the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) calls WASH facilities: water, sanitation and hygiene, including soap or sanitary supplies.

According to data compiled by AC Nielsen in 2011, the average Indian adolescent girl (between the ages of 12 and 18) misses 50 days of school a year as a result of inadequate facilities, or a lack of awareness of menstruation. Some 23 percent of all schoolgirls – over 50 million in total – drop out of school altogether once they hit puberty.

Of India’s roughly 335 million women, a mere 12 percent have access to sanitary napkins.

Because the subject is seldom discussed, even among families, peers or community members, many women resort to extremely unsanitary options during their period, including the use of unsanitised cloth, ashes or sand. Reproductive tract infections (RTIs) are 70 percent more common among women who engage in these practices.

This year, for the first time, the world will mark May 28 as Menstrual Hygiene Day, designed to address the very challenges countries like India are facing.

Against this backdrop, the NYB campaign is not only timely, it is essential if India hopes to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), development targets set by the world body in 2000 and set to expire in 2015.

Also known as the Great WASH Yatra, NYB aims to “improve policy and practice in an extremely challenging and taboo area of sanitation and hygiene: Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM).”

Launched in 2012, the 150,000-dollar campaign – generously supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation – will continue until 2016.

Already it has reached over 12,000 women and girls around the country, an overwhelming majority of who are adolescent students who say that being empowered to break the silence around menstruation is making a huge difference in their lives.

This process, though, has not been easy. Urmila Chanam, a Bangalore-based MHM educator who travelled to six states during the early stages of the campaign, said the stigma against menstruation runs deep, having been embedded for years in the minds of men and women alike.

“When a girl in India gets her first period, everyone tells her that she is impure because the blood flowing out of her is dirty,” Chanam told IPS.

“So, she grows up convinced that this is a shameful thing that she must not discuss. The first challenge of an educator is to have the girl overcome this sense of shame and fear. Everything else comes after that,” added Chanam, who also runs a web-based campaign called ‘Breaking the Silence’ that encourages both women and men to openly discuss the issue.

The determined efforts of a handful of NGOs and activists like Chanam have set the wheels of a full-blown movement in motion, with thousands of young women across the country coming forward to share their experiences.

A fine example of this is Soumya Selvi, a 10^th-grade student in a girls’ school in Srirangam, a town located about 320 km south of Chennai city in southern India.

Three years ago, Selvi and her fellow classmates were privy to a UNESCO-led reproductive health campaign, and became virtual ambassadors for the issue. Selvi alone has shared her knowledge with nearly 50 other girls in her school and her neighborhood. She has also not missed a single day of school during her period.

“My mother and my aunt never stepped out of the house when they had their periods,” she told IPS. “That was our family tradition. But, I told them, ‘this will happen to me until I am 50 years old, perhaps older. Should I sit at home all my life?’

“After that, they never asked me to miss school,” she recounted with a wide smile.

Still, experts agree that independent efforts can only achieve so much. Without government support, it could take decades to reach every woman and girl who remains fearful and silent. What is needed, they say, are inclusive and targeted training programmes that can help scale up impacts of individual campaigns.

Mukti Bosco, an eminent activist and founder of Healing Fields, a Hyderabad-based NGO that works with schools on menstrual hygiene management, told IPS it is time for campaigns to target female teachers and mothers, who can “instill positive behaviour in the girls.”

Others emphasise the role of communication as in invaluable tool in spreading the message. Sinu Joseph, a Bangalore-based MHM educator, has so far trained 8,000 girls across the southwestern state of Karnataka using an animation video.

“Young girls often ask, ‘Why can’t I visit a temple when I have my period?’” Joseph told IPS. “To answer such questions, one has to first know the cultural history. [Educators] must earn the trust of women and girls, so that they are comfortable enough to speak. Then they… not only learn, but also feel empowered.”

(END)