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HEALTH: Sanitation Advocates Lead Bowl Movement

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, May 21 2007 (IPS) - Sim Jae-Duck, a member of the South Korean national assembly, did a quick survey of the urban landscape in New York last week and expressed disappointment over a woeful shortage of public restrooms in a densely-populated city of over eight million people.

Sim, who also wears a second hat as chairman of the Seoul-based World Toilet Association (WTA), says every individual is entitled to clean sanitation as a fundamental right.

"The responsibility for providing public restrooms rests with local governments – and they should also pay for them," he insists.

In most parts of Europe, he said, the public is mandated to pay for the use of bathrooms. "This is wrong. It should be made available free since it is a basic human right," Sim told IPS.

For over 15 years, successive mayors of New York City and the city council have been battling over proposals for public toilets. But despite an agreement reached in September 2005 to install 20 public toilets by 2007, progress has been painfully slow.

The WTA, which was officially launched last year, is planning to hold a major international conference on sanitation Nov. 21-25 in the South Korean capital.

The meeting, which is expected to be attended by representatives from over 70 countries, will coincide with the November launch of the 2008 U.N. International Year of Sanitation (IYS).

At a recent preparatory meeting for IYS, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that some 2.6 billion people – roughly two out of every five – lack access to basic sanitation services.

Of the 2.6 billion, about 980 million are children. "That is simply unacceptable," said Ban.

Concurring with Sim, the secretary-general said that "access to sanitation is a fundamental issue of human dignity and human rights." But it is also an issue which relates to economic development and environmental protection, he added.

"When tracking progress towards the U.N.&#39s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)," he pointed out, "sanitation stands out as one of the critical areas where we are falling way, way behind."

Though global sanitation coverage increased, from 49 percent to 59 percent between 1990 and 2004, the United Nations says progress must be accelerated if the world is to achieve the 2015 target of reducing by half the proportion of people without access to basic sanitation.

Ban said that improved sanitation is "deeply and inextricably connected to virtually all the MDGs, in particular those involving the environment, education, gender equality, and the reduction of child mortality and poverty."

The MDGs include a 50 percent reduction in extreme poverty and hunger; universal primary education; promotion of gender equality; reduction of child mortality by two- thirds; cutbacks in maternal mortality by three-quarters; combating the spread of HIV/ AIDS, malaria and other diseases; ensuring environmental sustainability; and developing a North-South global partnership for development.

A summit meeting of 189 world leaders in September 2000 pledged to meet all of these goals by the year 2015. But their implementation has been thwarted by several factors, including a fall in development aid by donor nations.

Ann Veneman, executive director of the U.N. children&#39s agency UNICEF, says that "if current trends continue, there will be 2.4 billion people without basic sanitation in 2015, with children continuing to pay the price in lost lives, missed schooling, in disease, malnutrition and poverty."

"Children are especially vulnerable to diseases caused by lack of proper sanitation," she pointed out.

"Poor sanitation, hygiene and unsafe water claim the lives of an estimated over 1.5 million children under the age of five every year," Veneman added.

Sim said the primary goal of the November WTA conference is to establish an international organisation that would bring together representatives of governments and civil society to specifically address problems related to global sanitation.

These include the prevention of water-borne diseases in developing countries; the implementation and promotion of technologies that reduce or eliminate water usage in toilets; and the promotion of a "toilet culture".

He also pointed out that there is a need to exchange information and technology about toilets, and also a willingness to provide the world&#39s poorer nations with financial and technical support for improved sanitation.

In recent years, he said, the world has been confronted with problems that threaten human health and sanitation. These include "grave disasters" such as SARS, tsunamis, floods, earthquakes, hunger and wars.

"We are deeply worried about the risk of the spread of secondary infectious diseases due to improper sanitation," he noted. "The world must jointly solve these problems with a humanitarian perspective."

As mayor of the city of Suwon, about 30 miles from Seoul, Sim launched what he called an improvement in "toilet culture", which included bathrooms with classical music piped in through the ceiling and solar-powered electronic indicators on stall doors.

"A restroom is not just for sanitation. It is also a reflection of one&#39s culture," he declared.

The campaign for cleaner and improved public toilets was launched in advance of the 2002 World Cup football in South Korea.

"We have achieved a toilet revolution in Korea," Sim said.