‘Minuscule masterpieces for World Toilet Day’ – Timbuktu, Mali. Source: WaterAid
Since 2001, the 19th of November has been labelled World Toilet Day, in order to promote the importance of confronting ‘the oft-neglected global sanitation crisis’ (UN 2016). The toilet, albeit previously a taboo subject, has become a sort of poster child to spark a global interest in the situation of access to sanitation facilities. Unquestionably, this phenomenon is worthy of this intensified attention, as poor provision is a leading cause of disease in Sub-Saharan Africa and developing countries world over, with 2.4 billion people across the world living without access to improved sanitation (UN 2016).
This year’s particular theme revolves around ‘toilets and jobs,’ and how ‘toilets play a crucial role in creating a strong economy’ (World Toilet Day 2016). The United Nations recognises the fact that inadequate sanitation puts a large strain on economic development, estimating that poor sanitation can account for a 5% loss in GDP for many countries within Sub-Saharan Africa. Thus improved sanitation offers itself as a preemptive measure to avoid this burdensome result.
However, what needs to happen beyond World Toilet Day is a wider recognition and appreciation of what the toilet stands for, if we are going to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 6: to ‘ensure access to water and sanitation for all’ (UN 2015).
Journalist Rose George looked into many hidden but important topics during a Ted Talk in 2013. During the conference, she urges everybody to look at this problem as the “urgent, shameful issue that it is.” Rose concludes by saying the solution to all of this is “easy” and that we all need to “go out, protest, and speak about the unthinkable and talk shit.”
Let’s talk crap. Seriously. Source: Ted Talk
To find out more about World Toilet Day, visit: www.worldtoiletday.info
Hi Rob,
ReplyDeleteI've enjoyed following your blog to date and wanted to ask a question after seeing this post.
Do you believe that the taboo surrounding toilets, and other sanitary facilities, is the sole reason for its neglect in literature and policy?
Isaac
Hi Isaac,
DeleteThank you for asking this thought-provoking question. You are right in saying the situation of access to sanitation facilities has received inadequate attention on the global stage. Arguably, the taboo surrounding toilets and shit does play a large part in its neglect in literature and policy. Sarah Jewitt said in 2011: ‘Taboos surrounding human waste have resulted in a lack of attention to spatial inequalities in access to sanitation and the consequences of this for human, environmental and economic health.’
However, it is not just Jewitt whom touches upon this matter, there are many academics whom hold the same opinion. Black and Fawcett (2008), for example, have reckoned it is the ‘great distaste’ surrounding toilets and shit which causes a severe lack of attention given to sanitation.
Nevertheless, the taboo surrounding shit is arguably not the sole reason for sanitation’s neglect in literature and policy. Issues regarding sanitation are often simply attached to issues surrounding water; the lack of access or its contamination. For instance, Diarrhoeal disease is often labelled a water-borne disease, but water contaminated with fecal matter is only the cause of some types of the disease. Thus concentrating on the issue of access to safe water will not solve all the problems driven by a lack of sanitation.
What needs to come of this (and of World Toilet Day) is a greater recognition of the staggering, tragic, and unnecessary costs of a limited access to safe sanitation facilities. Issues of sanitation need to be recognised in themselves for how destructive they can be, instead of being labelled as a taboo or solely connected to issues of water.
The issue of sanitation is highly complex. If you would like to find out more, keep up to date with my coming blog posts, as I will be touching upon this subject in greater detail.
Robert