World Toilet Day 2022: Is India completely free from open defecation?
November 19 marks World Toilet Day, here is the Significance, theme and rest of the essential facts that we all should know!
Every year November 19 is celebrated as World Toilet Day. The event is celebrated to reach the 3.6 billion people worldwide without a toilet.
Notably, sanitation is a global development priority. The Sustainable Developments launched in 2015 include a target to ensure everyone everywhere has access to a toilet till 2030.
WTD: Theme and Significance
The theme of World Toilet Day 2022 is ‘Sanitation and Groundwater’, and the campaign title is ‘Making the invisible visible,’ the same as World Water Day 2022. We face a global sanitation crisis.
Today, more than 3 billion people live with poor-quality toilets that ruin their health and pollute the environment.
Inadequate sanitation systems spread human waste into rivers, lakes and soil, contaminating the water resources under our feet. Safely managed sanitation protects groundwater from human waste pollution.
Everyone must have access to a toilet connected to a sanitation system that effectively removes and treats human waste.
The link between sanitation and groundwater cannot be overlooked.
#WorldToiletDay is trending on Twitter. The event is celebrated yearly to draw people’s attention towards the world’s sanitation crisis. Toilet Day was initially established by the World Toilet Organization in 2001. In 2013, the United Nations passed a resolution recognizing WTD as an official UN international day.
The main goal of the UN is to send out the message that toilets save lives, increase productivity, create jobs and help the economy to grow.
Here are some essential facts that you should know
- About 1 out of 3 people lack access to improved sanitation.
- One in ten people has no choice but to defecate in the open.
- Disease transmission at work is mainly caused by poor sanitation and poor hygiene practices.
- About 58% of all cases of diarrhoea are caused due to unsafe water and poor sanitation.
- Being forced to defecate in the open threatens human rights and safety, especially for women.
In India, a more sustained solution is required to end open defecation. A targeted approach is essential to create demand for functional toilets and ensure an adequate supply of available toilets. World Toilet Day emphasizes the importance of expanding sanitation access to more than 4.2 billion people without safely managed sanitation options. The toilet is an essential amenity, and everyone should have access. A few years back, Nepal declared itself an open-defecation-free nation.
Let us take a look at India; where is our country standing?
Swachhta Mission in India by Prime Minister Narendra Modi
Prime Minister Narendra Modi started the Swachhta Mission in India, But the question is India open and defecation-free?
The Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation conducts the National Rural Sanitation Survey (NAARS). According to the survey, several households in the village declared open-defecation-free did not have access to clean toilets.
The NAARS survey also found that 24% of households declared ODF did not use safe methods to dispose of children’s faces. People were neither burying nor disposing of it in the toilets. The condition has improved in the past few years, but more must be done.
