Health

United Nations declares today as World Toilet Day

UN says about 2.5 billion people do not have access to adequate sanitation

Members of Brazilian indigenous ethnic group Javae-Itya use a portable toilet during the XII Games of the Indigenous People in Cuiaba earlier this month. Photograph: Paulo Whitaker/Reuters
Members of Brazilian indigenous ethnic group Javae-Itya use a portable toilet during the XII Games of the Indigenous People in Cuiaba earlier this month. Photograph: Paulo Whitaker/Reuters
Tue Nov 19 2013 - 10:53

About 2.5 billion people do not have access to adequate sanitation, a problem that contributes to countess deaths from preventable diseases, according to the United Nations.

“We must break the taboos and make sanitation for all a global development priority,” UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon said, in declaring World Toilet Day today.

Each year, more than 800,000 children under five die from diarrhoea worldwide, the UN says, many due to poor sanitation.

Lack of access to clean toilets in schools also deters many women and girls from pursuing their education after they reach puberty, according to a report from WaterAid, a private agency working with the UN and the Unilever company.