Parul Agarwal
Parul Agarwal
Overview
Parul became aware of the gravity of India’s sanitation problem on May 29 last year. It was on this day that reports emerged of two teenage girls being raped and hanged from a tree in Uttar Pradesh, India. On the night they were killed, they, like hundreds of millions of other women across India do each night, were going to field to use the restroom. Going in pairs or groups, women and girls attempt to stay safe while venturing into the fields only before sunrise or after sunset. Not only is there the risk of assault, going out on the field also presents enormous public health consequences. In India, one out of every 2 people defecates in the open. Open defecation increases exposure to fecal matter, contaminating food and water, and transmitting diarrhea-related diseases that kill 200,000 every year in India. Poor sanitation is also associated with other various infectious diseases, including soil-transmitted helminth infection, trachoma, schistosomiasis, and more recently with malnutrition. Something needs to be done. Since 1999, the Indian government has been promoting the “Total Sanitation Campaign,” which promises to put a toilet in every home by 2019. This is a noble venture, but recent reports are showing that people are not using the installed toilets. Why this is happening cannot be fully understood until the motivations of open defecation in India are appropriately studied and incorporated into a solution.
