It is very easy for us to place little value on our access to clean water and sanitation. In general, we don’t think twice about our ability to use the toilets in our homes, our schools, our places of employment and our public spaces. We view our access to toilets as a very basic provision and we each live in a society that takes that provision for granted.

Unfortunately, this is not the situation in many countries across the developing world where approximately forty per cent of the world’s population have no access to hygienic means of personal sanitation. In many countries, schools provide children with clean water and proper toilets. However, just over a third of schools globally lack adequate toilet facilities, affecting more than 620 million children. Almost one in five primary schools and one in eight secondary schools are considered to have no sanitation.

Poor sanitation puts children at risk of childhood diseases and malnutrition that can impact their overall development and learning, compromising their health and well-being. A lack of sanitation can contaminate food and water and contributes to the spread of serious diseases, such as cholera which is one of the leading causes of child mortality. Millions of children across the world have been left behind as they cannot access private and decent sanitation facilities in their schools. This lack of sanitation undermines the dignity and safety of these children but in particular it effects the girl’s dignity.