Women forced to defecate in open: 'Unsafe, unhealthy'
Rani Kumari in front of her house. Photo: TOB
By JANVI BANDA
LUDHIANA: There are more households having mobile phones in
"When there are no standing crops, it gets more difficult for women to go out in the open because then there is no privacy at all," she added.
As per the
“A single gram of faeces contains millions of viruses, bacteria and parasitic cysts, and contributed to nearly 100,000 diarrhoeal deaths of children under five years in India,” stated a report by the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund. It added that poor sanitation also negatively impacts the lives of women and children by crippling national development, which leads to workers living shorter lives, producing and earning less .Women having to defecate in the open at odd hours not only threatens their dignity, but their safety as well.
Kumari said that girls and women are expected to either defecate at night or in the wee hours when most people are asleep. “It is scary, but they don’t have a choice,” she added.
Vidya, a 16-year-old girl from the same village, said that during the menstrual cycle, it gets difficult to use the open space for defecation. “It is
Vidya wants the issue to be dealt on priority by the Government.
“Local politicians visit our village with the promise that they will provide us with proper sanitation facilities, but no one fulfills it. We don’t need false promises, but just a toilet,” she said.
(The story first appeared in The Times of Bennett, the lab newspaper produced by the first semester students of The Times School of Media.)
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