Author: Kobo-Daishi
Date: 03-28-12 21:22
Dear all,
A while back there was news about women in China staging their own "occupy" movement called "Occupy Men's Toilet" in the protest of there not being enough public toilet facilities for women.
Women need a greater amount of time to do their business than men and there are always long lines. ;-0
So the women protested by "occupying" men's restrooms demanding more toilets. ;-0
I don't know how that turned out, but, I remember that it inspired Indian women and there was an article about an Indian woman not marrying a guy until he installed an indoor toilet. ;-0
Here is a March 28, 2012 article titled "India’s Minister for Sanitation Promises End to Open Defecation in a Decade" found at the New York Times newspaper's blogs:
By SRUTHI GOTTIPATI
Sanitation in India is a dump.
More than half of all households have no toilet facilities, according to the latest census figures. And the figure’s dropped by 11 percent in the last decade.
Last week, the minister for sanitation, a new post, came up with a formidable goal: to make India an open defecation free nation in ten years.
“There is a need for a social revolution to remove this blot from the society,” said Jairam Ramesh, according to a government statement.
The World Health Organization considers open defecation “the riskiest sanitation practice of all.”
Mr. Ramesh, who also heads the ministry of rural development, a hefty portfolio, pointed out that only about 10 percent of the 250,000 village governments in the country rule areas that are free of open defecation.
He said toilets are closely linked to women’s “security and pride.” He’s not off the mark.
Women, who sometimes have to walk miles to reach a toilet, are a target for assault. Using filthy public toilets, often clogged in slums, can lead to serious infections in women. For those who are menstruating, the lack of this basic facility is a hygiene problem. Defecating in the open also mars dignity for women.
And there’s another injustice: there are more public toilets for men than women.
“In a 2009 study, the Center for Civil Society, a nonprofit organization, estimated that the capital had only 132 public toilets for women, many of them barely functioning, compared with 1,534 for men,” an International Herald Tribune story pointed out. The piece also exposed the links between toilets and women’s mobility, their ability to work efficiently and the school attendance of girls.
The pressing need is slowly being recognized.
A woman from a village in the state of Madhya Pradesh was rewarded last month for simply refusing to stay in her new marital home without a toilet. The move won her a $10,000 check from Sulabh International Social Service Organization.
And earlier this month, in an echo of a similar protest in China, women in Nagpur held an “Occupy Men’s Toilet” campaign where they marched and “captured” a men’s public toilet to draw attention to the lack of sanitation facilities for women around the country.
Mr. Ramesh, the minister, promised to launch a new national policy by next month, which will focus on community-based projects through village governments.
India Ink will be keeping tabs.
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The article may be found at the following link:
http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/28/indias-minister-for-sanitation-promises-end-to-open-defecation-in-a-decade/
Be sure to check out the accompanying photo. It's an eye-opener! ;-0
Caption to photo:
A slum resident in Mumbai, Maharashtra uses a makeshift toilet that opens into the water below, where children swim, in this May 12, 2006 file photo.
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I also read somewhere that it's a cultural thing (open defecation) and Westerners shouldn't foist their ideas of what is sanitary on the Indians. ;-0
Did you know that besides inventing paper, the Chinese also invented toilet paper? ;-0
It's true! Believe it or not! ;-0
I also read that Indians don't use toilet paper but instead have a pot of water to rinse their bums after doing number two. Utilizing their fingers as brush. ;-0
And that they also eat with their hands but they only use their clean hand (the one not used to wipe their butts) to eat with. ;-)
It's such a nuisance when one runs out of toilet paper, but, for Indians, what if the little pot runs out of water? ;-0
Gordon G. Rushdie (Kobo's new pseudonym) ;-0
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