Water, Gender and Development in Africa

“Periods shouldn't come in the way of us achieving our dreams. I don’t think any girl should miss a school day because she is a girl.”  – Melal, 15, Ethiopia  (Water Aid) In this context menstruation is usually positioned in a water, sanitation and hygiene and highlights the interdependence between sanitation, gender equity and education. As , the la te, UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan said,  "there is no tool for development more effective than the education of girls" ( UN, 2006 )  and without adequate toilet facilities, menstruation creates another gender disparity in education access ( Jewitt and Ryley, 2014 ). 'No more hopscotch' , the title of this blog, is one of the first things a young northern Tanzanian women, in an interview in Sommer's 2012 study, said she missed about girlhood and school. One of the main markers for leaving girlhood and entering adulthood is menstruation. There are many social, cultural and physical implications of be...

WASH campaign, ( WaterAid, 2013 )   I ended my last blog by asking ‘ 'Is the solution then a higher provision of toilets?'  Well, yes and no. This question oversimplifies a complex issue especially regarding gender based violence in Nairobi but I want to understand if sanitation-based development interventions can contribute to the reduction of risk in the lives of women and girls.  One large scale study in India, found that compared to using household toilets, open defecation doubles a woman's odds of non-partner sexual violence ; which does indicate that by improving toilet infrastructure has a direct effect on improving the safety of women ( Jadhav, Weitzman & Smith-Greenaway, 2016 ). While it is somewhat impractical to say the solution to all sanitation problems is having household toilets installed for all,  one recent study in Khayelitsha, South Africa , looked directly at the relationship between the costing involve...

“Men face being mugged, women face being raped, when going to the toilet after dark in Kenya’s slums” ( Amnesty International , 2010) According to WHO and UNICEF, 1/3 of women across the world are unable to access safe and adequate toilet amenities ( Gonsalves et. al, 2015 ).  Without planned sewage systems a whole host of issues arise around health and hygiene but recently an increasing number of researchers are pointing to the relationship between sanitation and women's risk of violence.  Walking to distant areas  or using WASH facilities at night puts women and children at risk of sexual harassment  and rape resulting in  sexually transmitted  diseases, pregnancy, "being accused of being unfaithful by husbands, being disowned by families, or mocked by other community members; and mental health challenges such as increased fear and stress " ( WaterAid, 2013 :1). I previously addressed water collection and risk. Water collection c...