Local informal settlements part of global sanitation crisis
Four years after Word Toilet Day was declared, toilets at many schools and informal settlements are still dangerous, dirty and degrading.
IT’S been more than a week since the world marked World Toilet Day on Thursday, 19 November as declared by the United Nations in 2013 to raise awareness and inspire action to tackle the global sanitation crisis.
Today, 2.4 billion people are struggling to stay well, keep their children alive and work their way to a better future – all for the want of a toilet. Toilets at many of South African schools and informal settlements are dangerous, dirty and degrading said Adriaan Taljaard of the Water Research Commission.
“They could well be the place where they face the greatest threat to the very lives of learners, who could fall into the pit and drown. All of this negatively affects teaching and learning,” said Taljaard.
Read also:‘Give us back long drop toilets’ say Malacca residents
In 2014, six-year-old Michael Komape died after falling and drowning in a pit toilet at his school at Mahlodumela Primary School in Chebeng outside Polokwane. Last week it emerged in testimony given during the second week of the damages action Komape’s family has instituted in the Limpopo High Court in Polokwane that the Department of Basic Education was warned about “sinking toilets” at the school as early as 2004.
Municipalities have a bigger challenge as informal settlements face similar or worse conditions as schools. Informal settlement dwellers say they sometimes go for months with no toilet facilities.
This year the Northglen News reported on residents living in the informal settlement in Crow Place in Kenville who spent more than five months dealing with poorly equipped and unusable sanitation chambers. They were forced to use bushes along the river and other vacant pieces of land to relieve themselves.
Read also: Residents at informal settlement bemoan state of toilets
Malacca Road Informal Settlement residents have long bemoaned the lack of proper sanitation facilities where they have experienced severe sewage blockages. World Toilet Day was aimed at raising awareness and inspiring action to tackle the global sanitation crisis– a topic often neglected.
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