By
Joachim Ezeji
Across the world, water remains a crucial resource but in Nigeria, as elsewhere, mostly African communities, the collection of water, whether from rivers, lakes, springs, wells, rain-water, ponds or other sources, has often been regarded as the responsibility of women. Water collection can sometimes be a very strenuous exercise, especially when the distance from the water source is great (often more than 1km) and the water is not easily accessible. In many communities, a single collection exercise can last for several hours, or in some cases, a whole day. This is a part of the daily routine for millions of women and girls in un-served communities. The involvement of children, in particular girls, in this chore restricts attendance at school, as well as time for play.
Furthermore, water-carrying exerts a toll on women’s health. Water containers typically hold about 20litres of water and weigh about 20kilograms. Carrying such a heavy weight on the head, back or hip has severe health implications for women, who commonly experience backache and joint pains. In extreme cases, of the spine and pelvic deformities result, creating complications in pregnancy and childbirth. Under these situations, a large proportion of women and girls in many rural parts of Africa has little if any chance and or economic development, and so a poverty spiral is set in spin for which the lack of access to water combined with poor basic sanitation conditions are its main pillars.
Partly responsible for this problem is the fact that the water services sector in Nigeria is in need of gender equity. While this has been obvious for many years, little attention has been directed to examining and reforming the domination of the male gender in decision –making in this sector that is so critical and basic to the daily survival of poor women, their families, and their communities. From the national ministries to the local utilities, the water sector is highly technical and male dominated. From the executive director, to the engineer, to the technician on the street, men have most of the jobs in this sector and most of the decision making power.
In the utilities, positions held by women are lower on the job hierarchy in clerical and unskilled work, including occupations such as secretaries, cashiers, customer relations and janitorial staff. Very few women work as managers, technicians and engineers. Often, women are not favoured for employment as they are perceived to have fewer responsibilities than men and are not regarded as breadwinners.
Furthermore, another constraining factor for women is that the education system did not encourage girls to take technical subjects but instead, girls were encouraged to take courses for jobs perceived to be for women, such as clerical and secretarial services. Such pre-conceived notions about appropriate employment for women subjected women to limited career prospects. Most of the utilities and ministries have no gender equity policies, gender units, or any policies or practices for gender equality.
Additionally, there are no affirmative actions or hiring policies for women, nor are there in-house professional development programmes to enable the capacity development of women staff in the professions and utilities. Though none of the utilities are ‘’actively’’ discriminating against women in terms of hiring or differential wages, none of the utilities, public or private, are actively encouraging women engineers and other women professionals to engage in the sector.
Though Nigeria has a National Policy on Women, no fully developed national gender policy exists. No progress has been achieved in domesticating what currently exists or mobilizing government ministries such as the water ministry to develop a separate and unique gender water policy. The mentioning of gender in various policy documents is dispersed and non- disaggregated. The result is that progress cannot easily be monitored. Also, the National Policy on Women failed to highlight critical implication of gender driven development or the gaps in documents such as the Nigerian constitution. None of both documents identified any pathway or guideline for addressing gender inequity in critical sectors such as the water sector.
The UN Development Report estimates that 40 billion mostly woman – hours per year are spent collecting water in sub – Saharan Africa alone. Women also report travelling further to collect water of suitable quality, because when water quality in nearby water sources declines, women and children are forced to travel further to access water. This adds to overall “time poverty” that women experience as a result of lack of access to safe water. Because women and children supply most water for the household, polluted water affects them the most because of the increased contact they have with unsafe water.
Unequal power relations place women in a disadvantaged position. Of the poorest people in the world, a shocking 70 percent are women. Women worldwide experience lower incomes on average and are more susceptible to unemployment. Where decline in water quality impacts the availability of water, more powerful groups have the advantage when accessing limited safe water sources. In West and South Darfur, of the nearly 500 women treated for rape, a majority – 82 percent were attacked while conducting daily activities such as gathering water. Women also bear the primary responsibility of caring for sick children and family members who fall ill due to unsafe water.
In developing countries, 1.3 billion women and girls live without access to a private, sanitary toilet. The lack of such a necessity forces women to go to the toilet in the open and under the cover of night, often risking rape and violence in the process. The lack of safe sanitation at school also dissuades girls from attending school after menstruation, further limiting education equality for girls.
But, if supported with basic services such as water supplies; a great many of poor women can turn their fortunes around. Apart from the many underlying health benefits; are the many inputs to ‘informal’ livelihoods activities such as small-scale cropping, livestock rearing, agro-processing and other micro-enterprises etc which are hugely dependent on adequate water supplies. In many of these activities, an adequate water supply is a crucial enabling resource: used in, or necessary for, the activity itself; freeing time (by reducing time spent collecting water); or as a key element in improved health that in turn enables women to work and girls to go to school on time and on regular bases.
Note: References has been used for this article though not cited. Author can supply them on request.
Showing posts with label health. Show all posts
Showing posts with label health. Show all posts
Saturday, 26 June 2010
Monday, 14 June 2010
Toilets: Issues beyond health
By
Joachim Ezeji
Often, people prefer not to think about what happens to their excreta once they have excreted it, either in the toilets or on the open field; but the earlier this nuisance is tackled the better because it is a serious issue that should no longer be glossed over. The earlier we fully understand the benefits of, and the risks associated with poorly managed or none use of toilets, the better. Some of these are well beyond the traditional health concerns.
People themselves usually improve their sanitation not because of the health arguments but because of social factors such as privacy, dignity, safety, convenience and status. The hundreds of people who must defecate behind bushes, in plastic bags, in roadside ditches face daily assaults to their human dignity. Poor women and girls are hit hardest by the absence of toilets. They care for children and the sick, and they are in greatest physical contact with human waste.
Living in a house without a toilet means going the whole day without relieving oneself and then risking exposure – or even assault – at night. Sexual harassment and rape are also a risk in certain areas, where women often seek privacy in the darkness. These problems take women’s time, imperil their physical well-being, and limit their free and equal participation in the economic and social life of the environment.
Poverty is more than a lack of income or a shortage of material goods. Human poverty, the lack of basic capabilities for participating in the activities of the community, is greatly exacerbated by lack of sanitation or toilets. For people living in households surrounded by human waste and garbage, it is stigmatizing and marginalizing. It creates embarrassment and deprives them of participation, choices and opportunities. Also, children, often will not use pit latrines because they are frightened of falling into the pits, and of what are usually dark, dirty and smelly places etc.
Again, the lack of segregated toilets fuels the discrepancy in primary school completion rates, as fewer girls complete primary school, compared to boys. On community cohesion, when families and influential local figures focus on ending open defecation, the condition of communities can be transformed. Pride in keeping paths and streets unsoiled can help build and maintain community cohesion. The need for sanitation and self respect from a clean environment can provide incentives for a transformation of local governance; sanitary reform has historically been a starting point for civic improvement.
Toilet or sanitation project can also be expected to change people’s relationship with the city authorities and the politicians, shifting from conventional patronage-based relationship with political parties and local governments to relationships that are more transparent and accountable. On poverty eradication, poor sanitation is often correlated directly with poverty; in parts of many Nigerian cities, hardly anyone from the poorest income quintile has a toilet, but 70 percent of those in the richest quintile do. It also causes poverty by making people ill, reducing their productivity and incomes, and by forcing them to use their time unproductively.
The chief asset a poor person has is often his or her physical health and ability to work; illness robs poor people of this asset while also diverting precious resources from critical areas like education. This has been analyzed in due realization of the social constraints that goes with poorly managed environmental sanitation. Both illnesses and diseases expand poverty and shrinks prosperity. While sick, many young children lose precious school hours, their mothers loses income by staying at home to nurse them, while their fathers expend the little resources in seeking medical remedy.
A children-centered view would also be germane in this context, why? In Owerri, under-five mortality rates are around half the national average (at 18.8% per 1000 live births). The deaths of this number of infants and children each year is commonly related to inadequate provision of basic water and sanitary infrastructure. Yet, for those who survive, debilitations of illness, pain and discomfort are common. Their nutritional status is often compromised by water and sanitation related diseases (especially diarrhoea and intestinal worms), and this has impacts not only on their physical development but also on social and mental development.
So, some primary economic benefits of having toilets are ; saving time; reducing direct and indirect health costs; increasing the return on investments in education; and safeguarding water resources etc. The biggest element is saving time. Households without toilets at home spend a great deal of time each day queuing for public toilets or looking for secluded places to defecate. The World Health Organization estimates this time has an economic value of well over US$ 100 billion each year. Many workdays are lost to diarrheal disease –when the worker is ill as well as when she or he is caring for a sick child. Meeting the sanitation MDG target would add more than 3 billion working days a year worldwide, universal coverage more than four times as many.
Thus, improved sanitation can enhance productivity. As to health costs, hygiene and sanitation are among the most cost-effective public health interventions. According to the highly-respected Disease Control Priorities Project, hygiene promotion to prevent diarrhoea is typically the single most cost-effective health intervention in the world, costing just $5 per disability-adjusted life year saved. Basic sanitation costs around $10–100 per disability-adjusted life year saved, which is rather better than the cost effectiveness of HIV/AIDS interventions.
Regarding education costs, Nigerian local municipality governments need to increase education spending to meet the MDG targets for school enrolment. That spending has a greater impact with services such as providing toilets for students and teachers, with separate facilities for girls. The reduction in diarrhoea by meeting the sanitation MDG target would add hundreds of days of school attendance per year globally for children in the community.
Further, healthy children learn better than children suffering from worm infections, which sap nutrients and calories and lead to trouble concentrating. Up to two-thirds of all school children here are infected with parasitic worms. And finally, girls are reluctant to attend schools if there are no safe, private toilets for them to use. This is particularly true once menstruation has begun. Cleaner and safer toilets in schools translate to more girls in school meaning higher rates of female literacy.
Good sanitation can safeguard water resources and maximize the impact of drinking water quality improvements. For example, the risks of water contamination during household storage and handling sharply increase in places that lack toilets. Contamination of local water resources used to supply drinking water can lead to unnecessary investment in more distant and expensive sources. Water resources are an important productive asset. Other economic benefits include the potential for biogas generation, which, as an affordable, cheap and environmentally friendly alternative energy will reduce energy cost for households. Also, organic fertilizers are derivable as it has the potential to enrich farmlands and boost agricultural harvests.
Joachim Ezeji
Often, people prefer not to think about what happens to their excreta once they have excreted it, either in the toilets or on the open field; but the earlier this nuisance is tackled the better because it is a serious issue that should no longer be glossed over. The earlier we fully understand the benefits of, and the risks associated with poorly managed or none use of toilets, the better. Some of these are well beyond the traditional health concerns.
People themselves usually improve their sanitation not because of the health arguments but because of social factors such as privacy, dignity, safety, convenience and status. The hundreds of people who must defecate behind bushes, in plastic bags, in roadside ditches face daily assaults to their human dignity. Poor women and girls are hit hardest by the absence of toilets. They care for children and the sick, and they are in greatest physical contact with human waste.
Living in a house without a toilet means going the whole day without relieving oneself and then risking exposure – or even assault – at night. Sexual harassment and rape are also a risk in certain areas, where women often seek privacy in the darkness. These problems take women’s time, imperil their physical well-being, and limit their free and equal participation in the economic and social life of the environment.
Poverty is more than a lack of income or a shortage of material goods. Human poverty, the lack of basic capabilities for participating in the activities of the community, is greatly exacerbated by lack of sanitation or toilets. For people living in households surrounded by human waste and garbage, it is stigmatizing and marginalizing. It creates embarrassment and deprives them of participation, choices and opportunities. Also, children, often will not use pit latrines because they are frightened of falling into the pits, and of what are usually dark, dirty and smelly places etc.
Again, the lack of segregated toilets fuels the discrepancy in primary school completion rates, as fewer girls complete primary school, compared to boys. On community cohesion, when families and influential local figures focus on ending open defecation, the condition of communities can be transformed. Pride in keeping paths and streets unsoiled can help build and maintain community cohesion. The need for sanitation and self respect from a clean environment can provide incentives for a transformation of local governance; sanitary reform has historically been a starting point for civic improvement.
Toilet or sanitation project can also be expected to change people’s relationship with the city authorities and the politicians, shifting from conventional patronage-based relationship with political parties and local governments to relationships that are more transparent and accountable. On poverty eradication, poor sanitation is often correlated directly with poverty; in parts of many Nigerian cities, hardly anyone from the poorest income quintile has a toilet, but 70 percent of those in the richest quintile do. It also causes poverty by making people ill, reducing their productivity and incomes, and by forcing them to use their time unproductively.
The chief asset a poor person has is often his or her physical health and ability to work; illness robs poor people of this asset while also diverting precious resources from critical areas like education. This has been analyzed in due realization of the social constraints that goes with poorly managed environmental sanitation. Both illnesses and diseases expand poverty and shrinks prosperity. While sick, many young children lose precious school hours, their mothers loses income by staying at home to nurse them, while their fathers expend the little resources in seeking medical remedy.
A children-centered view would also be germane in this context, why? In Owerri, under-five mortality rates are around half the national average (at 18.8% per 1000 live births). The deaths of this number of infants and children each year is commonly related to inadequate provision of basic water and sanitary infrastructure. Yet, for those who survive, debilitations of illness, pain and discomfort are common. Their nutritional status is often compromised by water and sanitation related diseases (especially diarrhoea and intestinal worms), and this has impacts not only on their physical development but also on social and mental development.
So, some primary economic benefits of having toilets are ; saving time; reducing direct and indirect health costs; increasing the return on investments in education; and safeguarding water resources etc. The biggest element is saving time. Households without toilets at home spend a great deal of time each day queuing for public toilets or looking for secluded places to defecate. The World Health Organization estimates this time has an economic value of well over US$ 100 billion each year. Many workdays are lost to diarrheal disease –when the worker is ill as well as when she or he is caring for a sick child. Meeting the sanitation MDG target would add more than 3 billion working days a year worldwide, universal coverage more than four times as many.
Thus, improved sanitation can enhance productivity. As to health costs, hygiene and sanitation are among the most cost-effective public health interventions. According to the highly-respected Disease Control Priorities Project, hygiene promotion to prevent diarrhoea is typically the single most cost-effective health intervention in the world, costing just $5 per disability-adjusted life year saved. Basic sanitation costs around $10–100 per disability-adjusted life year saved, which is rather better than the cost effectiveness of HIV/AIDS interventions.
Regarding education costs, Nigerian local municipality governments need to increase education spending to meet the MDG targets for school enrolment. That spending has a greater impact with services such as providing toilets for students and teachers, with separate facilities for girls. The reduction in diarrhoea by meeting the sanitation MDG target would add hundreds of days of school attendance per year globally for children in the community.
Further, healthy children learn better than children suffering from worm infections, which sap nutrients and calories and lead to trouble concentrating. Up to two-thirds of all school children here are infected with parasitic worms. And finally, girls are reluctant to attend schools if there are no safe, private toilets for them to use. This is particularly true once menstruation has begun. Cleaner and safer toilets in schools translate to more girls in school meaning higher rates of female literacy.
Good sanitation can safeguard water resources and maximize the impact of drinking water quality improvements. For example, the risks of water contamination during household storage and handling sharply increase in places that lack toilets. Contamination of local water resources used to supply drinking water can lead to unnecessary investment in more distant and expensive sources. Water resources are an important productive asset. Other economic benefits include the potential for biogas generation, which, as an affordable, cheap and environmentally friendly alternative energy will reduce energy cost for households. Also, organic fertilizers are derivable as it has the potential to enrich farmlands and boost agricultural harvests.
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