Toilet Girls: in rural India

It’s not everyday that your trip to the toilet invites the eager attention of the entire village.

When I was told, having applied for a research internship with UNICEF India, that I had been assigned to work on a project on sanitation, I admit to being a bit disappointed. The other projects seemed so much grittier, such as child labour, Dalit rights, HIV/AIDS, and child trafficking.

Primary school pupil in Dhaurisagar

In fact our team of three women got nicknamed the toilet girls, because we spent so much time asking people about their toilet practices and (where they existed) photographing their toilets.

What I hadn’t anticipated was just how fundamental this issue is.

Everyone who’s travelled around India by train will be familiar with the early morning sight of people squatting by the train tracks to relieve themselves. Almost half of homes in India lack a toilet.

Lalitpur District, where we were assigned to work, is one of the poorest in India. Conditions for the most part in the villages are pretty basic.

Many of the villages are isolated, with no proper roads. So you can imagine what an event it was when we turned up, two white women with our Indian colleague and a team of interpreters.

The children were especially excited and crowded round to have their photographs taken.

They were also super smart, eagerly drawing out the connections for us between poor sanitation and poor life prospects, pointing out that their education was impaired by the days of school they had to miss through illness. Adolescent girls confided in us that they often didn’t feel comfortable going to school during their periods, given that many schools had poor toilet facilities. This meant they would miss up to a week of school a month, putting them at a serious disadvantage.

Children at Mirchwara Primary

I couldn’t help but laugh however when one child piped up to say that as far as he was concerned the best thing about using a toilet was not getting pricked on the bottom by thorns.

Generally the adults were somewhat less on the ball than their children.

One man in the village of Ranipur told us that hygiene was for women to take care of, and he certainly had no plans to start washing his hands after defecating or before eating.

Other people told us that they didn’t like the idea of defecating in or near their houses, saying it was impure like the birds that sometimes flew into the houses and left their droppings everywhere. Many mentioned that it is considered unclean to defecate near areas where food is prepared or near where the gods or idols are kept.

Child in the village of Saidpur

In one case that really stood out a woman proudly showed us her newly constructed toilet which was beautifully clean, but said that she didn’t use it as she found it suffocating. She preferred to defecate in the fields.

These are genuine worries and shouldn’t be dismissed. They show that what is required is not just building toilets but changing attitudes.

However this requires authorities to be on board.

Gram Pradhan of Devrankhurd

One of the most disconcerting encounters we had was with the Gram Pradhan, or village chief, of a village called Devrankhurd. First of all he roared up to our meeting on a flashy motorbike, a far cry from the much humbler people we’d met elsewhere. Then he proceeded to tell us that he was fully aware of the connection between poor sanitation and disease, but as for the villagers, he said, well, they didn’t understand and were too busy to worry about building toilets, and anyway, he added, half under his breath, they’re all going to die one day so what does it matter if they follow hygienic practices or not.

Woman preparing lunch for school children in Saidpur

We did see signs of improvement however

- and again it was the children that shone.

For example, 14 year old Abhishek, from the village of Gadaulikan, told us that he had managed to convince his family to build a toilet. They are Jain, meaning they consider toilets impure, but Abhishek was able to convince them that it was cleaner to construct a toilet. Abhishek was really proud of what he called ‘his’ toilet. In fact he was so possessive of his toilet that he said he refuses to let his sister use it. However his father told us that in fact all seven family members now use their new toilet.

Primary school pupil in Dhaurisagar

In Saidpur, Ramshri said that the pressure she put on her parents to build a toilet eventually persuaded them that the expense was worth it. She described how happy she was that she no longer had to walk down a dirty, pot-holed path to the field when she wanted to use the toilet. She used to feel embarrassed because everyone would know exactly where she was going when she took that path. She was proud too that she had changed her parents’ behaviour, both of them now using the toilet.

Hearing these stories and seeing how these children’s eyes glowed as they talked about their toilets is the moment when I truly realized just what an important and meaningful issue this was, and also how easy it is for those of us in the western world to take for granted our access to these basic necessities.

Villager in Saidpur

The recently released Indian movie, Toilet

tells one more such story of a newlywed bride who is horrified to discover, when she moves in, that her new husband does not have a toilet in his home. She refuses to live with him until he installs one. He eventually does so against the resistance of his traditional father, with whom he lives.

Child in the village of Saidpur

The release of this movie coincides with a big push by the government to get people not only to build toilets but also to use them. Some of the initiatives have been less than positive such as shaming people into using toilets by filming them defecating, blowing whistles at them, or publishing their photographs in village billboards. Nevertheless important progress is being made with the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, proclaiming that the country needs ‘toilets before temples’.

Child in Saidpur

My initial reluctance about being assigned the issue of sanitation was completely reversed by the end of my three months working on the project. I came to realise that this is a fundamental issue of dignity, security and health. I am proud to have been a toilet girl!

All photos by @freewheel