Lack of private, clean and working toilets helps contribute to overpopulation in many developing countries.
The over population issue is a hard one for Environmentalists. On the one hand, we want to lower greenhouse gas emissions, but on the other hand, we advocate giving aid to third world countries. In a way, we are actively working to increase our global population, which then increases Global Warming through the support of the birth process. But there is a way to help girls in developing countries to stop having children, while giving aid to those that have already been born.
While doing research on the subject through Water.org, I came across some interesting data that said that girls in third world countries who have access to clean, private and working toilets, have less children.
Why is this?
- Girls in the developing world often drop out of school once they reach puberty because there are not separate sanitation facilities for boys and girls. When menstruating, there is nowhere private to tend to their needs or deal with soiled clothes. The resulting embarrassment and anxiety causes girls to give up on school. A girl who is actively enrolled in school is twice as likely to not have children during those school years as one who drops out.
But bring a toilet into the picture and education can remain a rightful priority. Shahida Juma, a sixth grader at Muslim School in Kenya, was excited about the school’s new toilets constructed by a Water.org project.
“Girls now have their own toilets and we are not disturbed by the boys anymore and do not have to worry about boys seeing us,” Juma said.
Lack of toilets or other sanitation facilities forces girls to wait until nighttime to defecate (under the cover of darkness) or to wake up very early in the morning. This not only causes extreme discomfort, but can also cause urinary tract infections and other gastro-intestinal problems.
Because no sanitation facilities are available, open defecation is a common practice in rural areas in the developing world – despite the fact that people are ashamed of being forced to use this practice and often know that it is associated with disease.
Studies have also shown that girls who stay in school and become women, even with a high school or equivalent education, feel more confident about themselves and their individual ability to care for themselves. This education and feeling of empowerment affords them the opportunity to make decisions about their own futures and bodies, without feeling as if the only thing they are good for is producing children.
Basic, clean and working sanitation should be added to the list of basic human rights. Please help support organizations like Water.Org that help make this a reality.
photo credit: geoftheref
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Wow! I am speechless. There is so much we don’t know about other cultures, and we take our cushy American lifestyle for granted, always whining.
Great and fascinating post, Adam. It’s amazing the wide-spread impact of programs and campaigns targeted specifically at girls and women can have on the environment, public health, education and other global issues. One of my favorite groups is The Girl Effect. Powerful stuff.
http://www.girleffect.org/
Cheers- Bethe
Thanks for the comment, and for the link Bethe! I’ll check it out.
brilliant article – nice to see such a clean and simple way of binding together two of the biggest problems we face regarding living sustainably as a species
This peek into the brutal realities of less fortunate peoples’ lives, in light of luxuries we take for granted underscores the need to fix worldwide poverty, for many reasons and Water.org is a good start.
I am also speechless… my heart goes out to these girls. Thank you for writing this article and educating someone who has been known to whine when the Family bathroom is occupied at the store.
You are welcome Wendy. It’s humbling when you know that the worst moment of your life is when you spill the coffee down the front of on your white shirt on the way to work, and then you hear about girls that have to dig holes in the dirt to defecate, and how that series of events leads to unwanted pregnancies and over population. How fortunate we are.
However, improvements in sanitation in third world countries reduce the death rate much, much faster than any small decrease in the birth rate. The result is a population explosion.
Economic development is the cause of overpopulation, not the cure. That’s not to suggest that living standards shouldn’t be improved. Rather, we need to recognize development’s potential for exploding populations and be prepared with other programs to address the problem.
Pete Murphy
Author, “Five Short Blasts”