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User:JustinePorto/Public toilets in Benin

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Public toilets in Benin
Example alt text
UDDT on the edge of the farming area in Benin
Language of toilets
Local wordsWC
toilettes
Men's toiletshommes
Women's toiletsfemmes
Public toilet statistics
Toilets per 100,000 people1 (2021)
Total toilets??
Public toilet use
TypeWestern style sit toilet
Locations???
Average cost???
Often equipped with???
Percent accessible???
Date first modern public toilets???
.

Public toilets in Benin are rare, and many people engage in open defecation. It has some of the lowest sanitation coverage in Africa, and in 2021 had only one public toilet per 100,000 people.

Public toilets[edit]

A French speaking country, the local words for toilets include toilettes and WC, while the local word for toilet paper is Papier toilette, the word for men's toilet is hommes and the word for women's toilet is femmes.[1][2]

A 2021 study found there was one public toilet per 100,000 people.[3]

WaterAid said in 2016 that the country ranked in the top ten in the world for countries where open defecation was most common.[4] In 2000, the countries with the lowest sanitation coverage in Africa were Ethiopia, Eritrea, Benin, Congo, Gabon and Niger.[5]

Regional and global situation impacting public toilets in Benin[edit]

Main article: Public toilet

Around 2.5 billion people around the world in 2018 did not have access to adequate toilet facilities.  Around 4.5 billion people lacked access to proper sanitation.[6] Public toilet access around the world is most acute in the Global South, with around 3.6 billion people, 40% of the world's total population, lacking access to any toilet facilities.  2.3 people in the the Global South do not have toilet facilities in their residence.  Despite the fact that the United Nation made a declaration in 2010 that clean water and sanitation is a human right, little has been done in many places towards addressing this on a wider level.[7]

German notions of cultural codes around the usage of public toilets has been exported to many parts of the world as a result of German colonialism, but many places in Africa and the Pacific continue to challenge those norms around cleanliness well into the 2010s.[8] Local resistance to toilet cleanliness justified further German repression on the part of the local population.[8]

Public toilets, depending on their design, can be tools of social exclusion. The lack of single-sex women's toilets in developing countries makes it harder for women to participate in public life, in education and in the workplace.[9] In developing countries, unisex public toilets have been a disaster because they make women feel unsafe and fail to consider local religious beliefs.[10] Across Africa, open defecation had social consequences.  These included loss of dignity and privacy.  It also put women at risk of sexual violence.[11]

An issue in developing countries is toilet access in schools.  Only 46% of schools in developing countries have them.[12] Many schools around the world in 2018 did not have toilets, with the problem particularly acute in parts of Africa and Asia.  Only one in five primary schools on earth had a toilet and only one in eight secondary schools had public toilets.[6] In developing countries, girls are less likely to attend school once they hit puberty if their school does not have adequate hygiene facilities.[13][14] 344 million children in sub-Saharan Africa did not have a toilet in their home in 2018.  The lack of toilet access put these children at risk of water borne diseases.[6]

There are generally two toilet styles in public bathrooms in Africa.  One is a traditional squat toilet. The other is a western style toilet with bowl and a place to sit.[15][16] Flush toilets are often only found in affluent areas of developing countries.[5]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Spencer, Erika Hope. "Research Guides: France & French Collections at the Library of Congress: Sub-Saharan Africa". guides.loc.gov. Retrieved 2022-11-01.
  2. ^ "How to say where is the bathroom in French | An important guide". Berlitz. Retrieved 2022-11-01.
  3. ^ QS Supplies (11 October 2021). "Which Cities Have The Most and Fewest Public Toilets?". QS Supplies. Retrieved 10 October 2022.
  4. ^ Reuters (2016-11-18). "Pakistan among 10 worst countries for access to toilets". DAWN.COM. Retrieved 2022-10-11. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  5. ^ a b Drewko, Aleksandra (September 2007). Resource-Oriented Public Toilets in Oriented Public Toilets in Developing Countries: Ideas, Design, Operation and Maintenance for Arba Minch, Ethiopia. Hamburg: Hamburg University of Technology.
  6. ^ a b c Associated Press (19 November 2018). "World Toilet Day Highlights Global Sanitation Crisis". VOA. Retrieved 10 October 2022.
  7. ^ Glassman, Stephanie; Firestone, Julia (May 2022). "Restroom Deserts: Where to go when you need to go" (PDF). AARP.
  8. ^ a b Walther, Daniel J (2017-11-14). "Race, Space and Toilets: 'Civilization' and 'Dirt' in the German Colonial Order, 1890s–1914*". German History. 35 (4): 551–567. doi:10.1093/gerhis/ghx102. ISSN 0266-3554.
  9. ^ Das, Maitreyi Bordia (19 November 2017). "The tyranny of toilets". World Bank. Retrieved 14 October 2022.
  10. ^ Coles, Anne; Gray, Leslie; Momsen, Janet (2015-02-20). The Routledge Handbook of Gender and Development. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-134-09478-3.
  11. ^ Reuters (2016-11-18). "Pakistan among 10 worst countries for access to toilets". DAWN.COM. Retrieved 2022-10-11. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  12. ^ Fleischner, Nicki (21 November 2015). "Toilets by the numbers". Global Citizen. Retrieved 2022-10-10.
  13. ^ Drewko, Aleksandra (September 2007). Resource-Oriented Public Toilets in Oriented Public Toilets in Developing Countries: Ideas, Design, Operation and Maintenance for Arba Minch, Ethiopia. Hamburg: Hamburg University of Technology.
  14. ^ Human development report 2006 : beyond scarcity : power, poverty and the global water crisis. United Nations Development Programme. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. 2006. ISBN 0-230-50058-7. OCLC 82368388.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  15. ^ Planet, Lonely; Ham, Anthony; Atkinson, Brett; Bainbridge, James; Butler, Stuart; Carillet, Jean-Bernard; Clammer, Paul; Corne, Lucy; Filou, Emilie (2017-11-01). Lonely Planet Africa. Lonely Planet. ISBN 978-1-78701-147-2.
  16. ^ Planet, Lonely; Ham, Anthony; Bainbridge, James; Corne, Lucy; Fitzpatrick, Mary; Holden, Trent; Sainsbury, Brendan (2017-09-01). Lonely Planet Southern Africa. Lonely Planet. ISBN 978-1-78701-240-0.
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