Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI, Sep 18 2007 (IPS) – For as long as Hatal Bibi, 50, can remember, women in her village, Ahmed Khaskheli, 250 km east of this port city, in Sindh province s Sanghar district, spent hours fetching water from a canal four km away and used an enclosed communal patch to relieve themselves.
Not in her wildest imagination did she think that she would one day be able to fill her pitcher, as many times as she liked, just by pulling at a hand pump outside her two-room mud house; or, better still, that she and her three daughters would have a toilet for their exclusive use.
Their neighbour Sadori, 35, who also has two teenage daughters, joins in with graphic details of life before latrines were installed in their homes, six months ago.
Earlier, the village women would all share communal open patches, enclosed on all sides with tall thorny bushes to provide privacy from prying male eyes, #39 #39 Sadori said. #39 #39We would first dig a small ditch, then after the job is done, cover it with loose earth. It was horrible and the place would always be stinking and swarming with flies. Rainy season was the worst. And if you were not careful, you d soil your feet. #39 #39
For these basic needs, that Hatal Bibi terms nothing less than luxuries , she cannot thank the Sindh Agricultural and Forestry Workers Coordinating Organisation (SAFWCO) enough.
SAFWCO has helped build 289 latrines in eight villages. Each latrine costs Rs 7,000 (116 US dollars) and each household contributes Rs 1,400 (23 dollars) or 20 percent of the cost, with the rest borne by SAFWCO.
A civil society group, SAFWCO, began a social mobilisation programme by forming village development organisations (VDOs) in 1986.
Suleman Abro, director of SAWFCO, explains that sanitation and hygiene promotion can never have any impact if they come from the top. Prod them into thinking in that direction and allow them to choose suitable ways to improve their living conditions. Lead the people to the solutions and leave it to them to decide. They are quite apt at it they are the real experts.
Through the VDOs, SAFWCO began to teach villagers that improving their living did not always mean incurring huge expenses. Building and using these low-cost latrines is part of this programme.
Nobody agrees with this more than the people of Sher Khan Malukhani, a village in Matiari district. Having built an open drainage system in partnership with SAFWCO, the next step was brick-lining the dusty pathways.
But the village women were demanding toilets. Though almost last on their list of priorities, the men acceded to their wishes. That s our next project. We do realise their problem and we will try to resolve this issue too. We had no dearth of manpower, we just didn t have direction, says a beaming Mithoo Khan, one of the villagers.
Men generally feel that building toilets is pandering to the wishes of the women. The idea that men could themselves use the toilets is still an alien concept to Khan and many like him. Personally I d feel very claustrophobic using that small space, but for women, I do realise there is the issue of privacy. They have to walk quite a bit to find a secluded space and take a companion to keep a lookout, says Khan.
Not only did Sadori save money to bear 20 percent of the cost, but she and her daughters helped her husband Nawab with the construction by carrying bricks and other material.
I never knew what it means to have a clean, stink-free place to relieve myself. It s such a treat! she can not help but marvel at the newly installed soak-pit latrine in the far corner of the courtyard within the boundary wall of her home.
And now when female guests come to my home from another village, I don t have to worry about taking them to that dismal place anymore. They can use my toilet anytime of the day or night, says a beaming Sadori.
In the neighbouring village of Mir Ghulam Shah, Makhani feels exactly the same way. It means we can relieve ourselves whenever we need to. My daughters don t have to wait for nightfall or sunrise; or fear the scorpions and snakes that may bite them. Nor do I have to worry that someone could be peeping on my daughters, says Makhani who has seven daughters, all in their teens and early twenties.
With a hand pump nearby, they make sure that a pitcher of water is always inside their latrine. We have begun to wash our hands with soap after using the toilet, says Makhani.
That habit will obviously have far reaching consequences for her health and that of her daughters. Shyly she confesses that now there is also privacy to wash the menstrual rags properly. She has no idea that improving sanitation will contribute to meeting five of the United Nations eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
According to the U.N. Children s Fund (UNICEF), an estimated 150,000 Pakistani children die every year of dehydration that follows diarrhoea and the root cause is lack of clean drinking water and poor hygiene practices.
While access to improved sanitation in South Asia has more than doubled from 17 percent in 1990s to 37 percent in 2004, according to the WHO/UNICEF joint monitoring programme which is reviewing the progress, coverage is still low as two out of three people still lack basic sanitation. That translates to 900 million people not having access to sanitary toilets.
One of the key reasons for lack of safe hygiene practices in Pakistan, point out public health experts, is poor awareness of, linkages between unsafe excreta disposal and the spread of dysentery and other diarrhoeal diseases.
People may want latrines for reasons of convenience, privacy and status, rather than sanitation and health, says Abro who feels a more lasting solution lies in transforming attitudes to the practice of open defecation. This should then lead to building toilets.
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