It’s “high time” to break taboos associated with talking about sanitation and toilets and draw attention to the fact that two-thirds of the world’s population – 4.5 billion people – do not have access to a safely managed sanitation system while almost a billion practice open defecation.
That’s according to Dinesh Suna, coordinator of Ecumenical Water Network of the World Council of Churches. In a reflection marking World Toilet Day given at the WCC’s Ecumenical Center Chapel in Geneva on Monday, Suna said it was time Christians “break the taboos associated with sanitation, toilets and openly talk about it, pray about it”.
PICTURE: Gilles Desjardins/Unsplash
“When thousands of children are dying everyday due to lack of adequate sanitation facilities, we can no longer shy away from talking about toilets,” he said. “When lack of sanitation robs people of their dignity, particularly women and girl children, it needs our serious attention. Fullness of life, promised by God in John 10:10, cannot be achieved without access to a dignified and adequate sanitation facility. You and I cannot manage without it. Why should the two-thirds of world’s population?”
Later in his speech, Suna added: “Our God of the poor and God of justice will not be offended when we talk about such a vital aspect of life and a human right denied to billions.”
Noting that he comes from India – a country often called the “world’s largest open air toilet” which has spent more than $US20 billion in its efforts to be an open defecation free country by 2019, Suna said that addressing the issue is not just about building more toilets but also addressing behavioural changes around issues of sanitation.
“India has built millions of new toilets, and many of them have become dysfunctional due to lack of running water,” he said. “Some of them are used by the communities to store food grains and other valuables, as those toilets are the only concrete structure in the poor households and the fact that Indian culture does not promote relieving themselves in their own house, which is sacred! Therefore, sanitation is not only about construction of toilets but it must be looked at with a comprehensive approach.”
World Toilet Day was founded in 2001 and has been officially recognised by the UN since 2013. The theme for this year’s day was ‘When Nature Calls’.
Universal access to toilets by 2030 is one of the Sustainable Development Goals.
