According to the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) for Water Supply and Sanitation, a shocking 2.4 billion people lack an improved sanitation facility. In efforts to increase access to sanitation, programmes tend to focus on adults. Children’s sanitation needs are often overlooked. One of the key areas of concern for children is related to what are considered ‘safe’ means to dispose of child faeces.
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A woman cleans her toilet as her child looks |
The JMP led an expert consultation to explore this issue - the findings and a summary article are now available from the journal Waterlines. The study found strong consensus among experts that the two practices investigated (disposal of stools with solid waste and burial of stools) should not be considered as ‘safe,’ consistent with the analytical approach used in MICS reports.
Children’s faeces are thought to be particularly dangerous due to children more often having diarrhoea and when allowed to defecate in the open, they often do so near other children and in play areas. One of the study’s authors, Rob Bain, said that “although often perceived as unpleasant but relatively harmless, children’s faeces may in fact pose a greater risk than adults'.”
Data on child faeces disposal practices from MICS surveys have also been highlighted recently in a series of country profiles prepared by UNICEF and the Water and Sanitation Programme of the World Bank. The profile for Lao PDR, based on the MICS survey in 2011-12, for example, shows that in four out of five households (82%) faeces of children under three were not deposited into a toilet or latrine, including two thirds (64%) of households where adults use an improved sanitation facility. These data have stimulated discussion in the sanitation sector and serve to highlight the large gaps in coverage of sanitation for children.