India, Bihar: rapes ’caused by lack of toilets’

Map showing frequency & severity of violence against
women in Bhalswa slum, Delhi. Shirley Lennon/SHARE.

The lack of safe toilets for women and girls is often linked to an increased risk of sexual harassment and rape. Earlier studies [1] from Kenya, Uganda and India, and now a recent BBC news item are some of the few sources to actually quantify this risk.

Senior police official Arvind Pandey from the Indian state of Bihar told the BBC that 400 women would have “escaped” rape in 2012 if they had toilets in their homes. The rapes take place when women go outside to defecate early in the morning and late evening. These “sanitation-related” rapes make up nearly half of the more than 870 cases of rape in Bihar in 2012.

The BBC news item lists three specific cases:

• On 5 May, an 11-year-old girl was raped in Mai village in Jehanabad district when she was going to the field at night
• On 28 April, a young girl was abducted and raped when she had gone out to defecate in an open field in Kalapur village in Naubatpur, 35km (21 miles) from the state capital, Patna
• On 24 April, another girl was raped in similar circumstances on a farm in Chaunniya village in Sheikhpura district. She told the police that two villagers had followed and raped her. One of them has been arrested

In Bihar , 75.8% of homes have no toilet facilities (Census 2011). Some 49% of the households without a toilet wanted one for “safety and security” for women and children, according to a study by Population Service International (PSI),   Monitor Deloitte and Water for People.

[1] Heise, L., 2013. Danger, disgust and indignity : women’s perception of sanitation in informal settlements. Powerpoint presented at “Making connections: Women, sanitation and health”, 29 April 2013, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). Video version available at:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AS9ulpJqh7s

Related news:

• Request for Proposals: The effects of poor sanitation on women and girls in India, Sanitation Updates, 07 Mar 2013
• India, Delhi: how sexual violence against women is linked to water and sanitation, E-Source, 27 Mar 2012

Source: Amarnath Tewary, BBC, 09 May 2013

India, New Delhi: garbage trucks to be fitted with GPS and radio devices

Reblogged from Sanitation Updates:

Big brother will soon be watching over garbage truck drivers in East Delhi once the local municipal corporation installs an electronic tracking system. The East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) plans to install global positioning system (GPS) and radio frequency identification devices (RFID) in its garbage trucks.

This will enable the EDMC to track the garbage trucks movements and monitor their work performance.

Read more… 116 more words

BRAC WASH offers to help half a million Indian imams promote hygiene

Reblogged from Sanitation Updates:

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On WaterCouch.tv, Rabbi Awraham Soetendorp shares a practical example of international water cooperation that emerged during the 2013 World Water Day celebrations in The Hague, The Netherlands. In one of the sessions, BRAC WASH programme director Dr Babar Kabir explained that his programme had trained 18,000 imams in Bangladesh to include hygiene messages in their Friday prayers (see Kabir, 2010).

Read more… 125 more words

IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre signs MoU with India’s premier civil services training and research centre

IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre, The Netherlands, and India’s National Institute of Administrative Research (NIAR) are joining forces on capacity development and action research.

On 18 December 2012 the two institutes signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in New Delhi in the presence of the Secretary of the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Mr. Pankaj Jain IAS.

NIAR is the research wing of India’s premier training centre for civil servants, the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA) based in Mussoorie. It manages various centres of excellence within LBSNAA and is also a Government of India (GoI) recognised key resource centre for rural drinking water.

The MoU was signed by NIAR Director General Mr. Kush Verma IAS, and IRC Manager, South Asia & Latin America Team, Joep Verhagen on behalf of the IRC Director Nico Terra. Also present at the function were T.M. Vijay Bhaskar IAS, Joint Secretary, Government of India, Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Dr Kurian Baby IAS, India Country Director and Senior Programme Officer – South Asia, IRC and Dr. B.S. Bisht, Associate Professor & Nodal Officer, National Key Resource Centre (Water & sanitation), NIAR-LBSNAA, Mussoorie.

The MoU envisages collaboration on:

1. training and capacity building in the water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) sector
2. networking with other national / state training institutes
3. integrating WASH training programmes with LBSNAA academic programs
4. joint action research programmes

Speaking on the occasion, Pankaj Jain IAS, Secretary, GoI expressed the hope that the MoU would lead to constructive cooperation between the two centres of excellence, in designing curricula, improving contents, building capacities and supporting action research leading to sustainable WASH service delivery in the country.

For more information contact: Dr. V. Kurian Baby, India Country Director and Senior Programme Officer, South Asia, IRC, e-mail: kurian@irc.nl

India – Misleading Facts: Still We Can Celebrate World Toilet Day [opinion]

November 19 is World Toilet Day. The monitoring of sanitation facilities globally remained a challenge to the country governments and International agencies. It is sometimes said that the cursory assessment reports (e.g. JMP-Joint Monitoring Programme) of the facts about the rural and urban sanitation scenario may lead to pressure on country governments to expedite the process of providing better and sustainable sanitation infrastructure to their population.

In a scenario where still 2.5 billion people around the world don’t have clean toilet facilities and 1.1 billion still defecate in open, how much the advocacy terms as human right approach and sanitation as economic investment will pave better future for commons.

The problem of the commons in India on sanitation is about the low cost sustainable sanitation technology options, access to quick and reliable information for infrastructure building and some sort of advisory and technical support. The monitoring process and getting reliable information from the developed infrastructure is another important aspect that need serious consideration in India.

India, Bengaluru: the business of the honey-suckers

Indigenously developed honey sucker in Bengaluru (Bangalore), south India. Photo: Vishwanath Sankrathai

A new IRC paperexplores some contributions being made by honey-sucker tanker operators — that renders a small-scale sanitation service informally and within the private sector — on waste (faecal) extraction and, in some cases, reuse. Operating outside the legal framework of waste management, this paper provides preliminary insight into the limitations and potentials of the ‘honey-sucker business’ as a sanitation service model, based on selected experiences in Bengaluru (India).

India, Kerala: Mazhapolima participatory well recharge programme – video

Dr. Kurian Baby visits one of the recharged wells. Photo: The Hindu

A new video highlights India’s largest [1] well recharge programme in Thrissur, Kerala. The Mazhapolima participatory well recharge programme was initiated in May 2008 and aims to (eventually) recharge about 450,000 dug wells in the district, through community awareness and action. It was set up by former Thrissur District Collector, Mr. Kurian Baby, who now works as Senior Programme Officer, South Asia & Latin America Team at IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre.

[1] S. Vishwanath, Preparing for the monsoon rains, The Hindu, 26 May 2012

Read the programmme concept note and process document.

For more information on recharge well case studies and technology go to the India Water Portal.

Asia: reducing lost water could bring water to millions

Millions of people in Asia and the Pacific could have access to clean water if leaks were plugged and water utility reforms adopted, says a new study by the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

“By cutting the amount of lost water in half, 150 million people could be supplied with treated water”, said ADB’s Vice President for Knowledge Management and Sustainable Development Bindu Lohani.
ADB estimates that 29 billion cubic meters of water is lost each year in the region, causing Asia’s water utilities to lose more than US$ 9 billion in revenue each year.

The ADB study, which showcases eight of the best-performing water utilities [2] in Asia, shows that current unaccounted for water (UFW) levels in the region of up to 60%, can be brought down to less than 20%. Phnom Penh even managed to lower its UFW level to just 6% in 2008.

Good Practices: The Success Framework for Urban Water Utilities. Source: ADB publication “Good Practices in Urban Water Management”

The study developed a Good Practices Success Framework (see figure above) with seven key elements that urban water utilities need to address. Regarding one of these elements, empowering the poor, the study notes that each of the eight water agencies studied provided some kind of subsidy for obtaining a water connection and, in deserving cases, for the use of water as well.

[1] Chiplunkar, A., Seetharam Kallidaikurichi and Tan Cheon Kheong (eds), 2012. Good practices in urban water management : decoding good practices for a successful future. Mandaluyong City, Philippines: Asian Development Bank. xx, 206 p. Available at: < http://www.adb.org/publications/good-practices-urban-water-management>

[2] Bangkok, Thailand; Colombo, Sri Lanka; Jamshedpur, India; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Manila, Philippines; Phnom Penh, Cambodia; Shenzhen, People’s Republic of China; and Singapore.

Related news: Higher water tariffs are associated with lower water loss, E-Source, 06 Dec 2011

Related web site: World Bank – Urban Water

Source: ADB, 03 Jul 2012

India, Bengaluru: commercial productive use of faecal sludge

Waste is a resource in the wrong place. People who have no sewer connection do go to the toilet though urban authorities seem to think differently given the neglect of the multitude of sanitation self-service models that have emerged in many cities.

During a webinar, which was organised on 2 May 2012, Joep Verhagen of the IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre presented the results of a case study, which investigates a model that is based on the productive use of faecal sludge by farmers in and around Bengaluru (Bangalore), the capital of the Indian state of Karnataka. This particular service has emerged without any technical or financial support.

For more IRC webinars go to: www.irc.nl/page/69625

India: Bollywood actress becomes national sanitation brand ambassador

Vidya Balan, who received the Best Actress National Film Award for her role in 2011 Bollywood hit ‘The Dirty Picture’, will now play a role to alter the real dirty picture in India. Union Minister of Rural Development Jairam Ramesh has named the Bollywood actress as the brand ambassador in his campaign for improving sanitation [1].

According to India’s 2011 census, nearly half of population have no toilet at home, but more people own a mobile phone [2]. There are 2.1 million toilets in India which rely on manual scavengers to empty them [1].

The Minister hopes that Balan can help turn his campaign to end open defecation into a national obsession:

“it is going to be a very serious commitment on her part – she’s had a dirty picture in reel life, but this will be a clean picture in real life”. [1]