Support Education of Girl Children by Building the Toilets

15-year-old Gauri sobbed uncontrollably standing in front of her school which was ravaged by the flood. The school building was still standing but the block of toilets was absent. With tears rolling down her cheek, she said “With the toilets gone, my friends and I will be stopped from coming to school by our parents. The parents do not want the girls to go to schools where there are no separate toilets for them. They feel that the girls will not be safe.” “Like most other girls of our age, we will be married off or sent away to work in some unknown places. My dream of becoming a teacher ends here. So does the dream of all my friends who wanted to study more and achieve in life.”

This is a common picture in most villages in Mudalagi taluk in Belgaum, one of the poorest districts of Karnataka. With life and livelihood submerged due to annual flood and crop failure, the district is plagued with school dropouts, child marriages, child trafficking, malnutrition, HIV/AIDS and labour trafficking. Midday meals and sanitation facilities in schools motivate the parents to send their children, especially adolescent girls, to school. 

We will renovate and construct toilets in schools with proper sanitation and water facilities in order to ensure that they are accessible to the students, especially the girls. 

The absence of separate toilets for girls is associated with privacy, safety, and health problems. The fear of assault by boys is enough to keep parents from sending their daughters to schools. Various research studies have shown that one of the reasons for the large drop-out of girls from schools at the secondary level is because of a lack of access to clean and separate toilets in schools. In many states where the dropout rates are high, it has been seen that though separate toilets exist, they are not accessible by girls as they are locked. They are forced by the parents to stay back at home during their menstruation cycles and miss too many days every month, including key tests leading to their expulsion from schools. Most girls feel unsafe relieving themselves behind bushes. Some girls refrain from eating or drinking during the day and end up feeling sick from dehydration and hunger. They also put themselves at high risk for urinary tract infections and kidney stones by holding back the urge to relieve themselves.

We will renovate and construct 20 toilets in selected schools.

By constructing and renovating the toilets in schools we want to ensure more children, especially girls to continue education. Building toilets also has health benefits. Attendance of children, particularly girls improves because they are less likely to drop out due to prolonged illness. In recent years, multiple papers and reports have been published that recommend the building of toilets as a way to increase enrollment of both boys and girls. To make education a viable option for girls, fulfilling a precondition that leads to offering safe environment for the girls in schools is very important. Toilet facilities provide privacy and safety to all.

The addition of toilet facilities will also increase attendance by female teachers. It will also encourage more women to become teachers – a possible inspiration to both girl students and their parents towards the continuation of education.

While there are many deep roots of problems of gender inequality, improving school sanitation will provide one mechanism to increase gender equality by targeting disproportionately high dropout rates among pubescent-age girls.