ON THE WAY TO AN OPEN FIELD. The rape risk for women for open defecation.

On the night of 27th of May, in Katra Sahadatganj, two girls said to their parents they’d have left home for toilet. The girls were found hanged from a tree the following hours. From a first investigation, the girls have been raped, killed and then hanged to make it looks like a suicide. Unfortunately, as many cases like this, it turned in suicide leaving the culprits free. This is not an isolated case, especially in the villages, women who have to find an open field to defecate or only to cleanse themselves are many and they usually doing this under the cover of night, far from the village eyes. Many women say to prefer to wake up before down and think it is better doing with someone else like a female friend or relative, never alone. They know that men lurk, watch and worse. “Try to squat in a sari, while holding a cup of water to cleanse themselves and keeping an eye out for rapists” wrote Rose George for HuffPost. According to a 2015 UNICEF/WHO report, this is what about 300 million women and girls in India have to face every day because they have no access to toilets. A WaterAid, DFID-funded Sanitation and HARE study, explains that in the slums people have to share public toilets and girls under the age of 10 reported to face a higher risk to be raped on the way to reach the public toilets. In many interviews conducted by researchers, women from villages and slums narrate the high frequency of cases of assaults. In any case, women always faced lewd remarks, physical gestures and rape when they hide in the bush. Particularly, a mother said she had to fight with a group of delinquents for protecting her daughters from getting raped. She knew that or they kill her to rape her daughters or they back off. The frequency of this assaults is chilling.

Nearly half the world’s population lacks access to improved sanitation conditions and half of them reside in India, where almost half a billion people defecate in the open. The lack of adequate sanitary facilities lead women to an increased exposure to the risk of gang rape and lynching. This is one of the reasons why open defecation have to be stopped, in addition to diseases caused by faecal contamination. Indeed, according to the recent UNICEF survey, 102 813 children in India died, in the 2016, due to diarrhoea. No country in the world has more open defecation than India, where one in two people defecate outside. Although open defecation has been reduced by 31 percent since 1990, about 300 million women and girls in India still have no other choice.

The improvement of toilet infrastructures in the villages is a target for the decrease of women sexual violence for open defecation, providing them some level of protection. According to Approva Jadhav, a US researcher, the non-partner violence is a type of sexual violence closely linked to open defecation places. The research results suggest that women who use open defecation have twice the odds of non-partner sexual violence (NPSV) than women who use household toilets. So, it is necessary to improve infrastructures to provide women with some level of protection against NPSV.

However, the building of infrastructures for sanitation purposes has to face an important challenge regarding the changing of people behaviour. According to a study, at least 50 per cent of structures built for sanitation purposes in India remains unused or is used for other purposes. According to some critics, this is due to the fact that imposing an infrastructure never used before without a direct request from the population, leads to a psychological rejection in front of the change in their habits. The change of behaviour can be done only by a demand driven by the population. For example, it is known a movement called "No loo, No I do", through which brides refuse to get married into families which live in homes without toilet. This can be useful for rousing the population mind.

India is running far behind to attain its sanitation goals and the situation is getting difficult with each passing year. The researchers strongly recommends infrastructure improvements that can provide women with some level of protection against sexual violence, along with behaviour changes to utilise these built toilet facilities.

Currently, many campaigns and NGO’s action, like HEEALS committed in the UN’s WASH project,  and the Indian government are underway to raise awareness of the use of toilets and to stop open defecation, involving the aim in the national conversation and following the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6.2 for sanitation and hygiene. This is an important need that population can’t avoid anymore, because it regards public health and safety but also human dignity.

Elisa Stucchi-

WASH & MH Coordinator 

Toilet For Healthier, Dignified And Free Life

The possibility of access to safe, accessible and clean sanitary facilities reperesent an added value to the dignity of man and, in this particular context, of women.

In India, one of the greatest challenges is to provide women the opportunity to use safe and functional toilets to manage their personal hygiene. Many people in India are forced to defecate outdoors which not only corresponds to a lack of privacy but also to a mismanagement of hygiene because there isn’t clean water available to wash your hands and clean the body after defecation.

Although the Indian state is engaging through the Swachh Bharat mission undertaken on 2^nd of October, 2014 to ensure that the entire Indian population has the benefit of being able to use safe toilets,still today, access to clean water and sanitation is a great problem.In India, about 522 million people still defecate in the open, increasing the risk of spreading diseases like diarrhoea and other types of viruses, not being able to wash their hands and walk for the most part barefoot.According to Indian government data mission the percentage of children who do not have access to the toilet corresponds to 50.2% of males 44.6% of females compared to those who instead use accessible baths that account for 26% of males and 24% of females.Although the state is committed to providing more infrastructure, the problem affects more deepen in the socio-cultural and educational aspect. More specifically, this factor affects the dignity of women and respect for gender equality.

Women who live in rural areas and in suburban villages that do not have toilets, often reduce themselves keeping their physiological needs until the night, and look for a land abandoned, miles away from home in the complete darkness to be able to relieve themselves. This, however, exposes them to a high risk not only to contract parasitic diseases but also to the nights dangers, as ill-intentioned that would sexually abuse them or would like to rob them.According to research, 70% of abused women suffered this type of violence while looking for a place to defecate far from their home.

Keeping the physiological needs, brings serious consequences to metabolism, requiring your body an unnatural effort that causes infections both in the urinary tract and in the intestine due to the bacteria not expelled for too long by our body. According to the Indian Medical Association, retaining physiological needs for a long time, and not expelling them when the body requires, itcan also cause the intestine to collapse as well as the lack of assimilation of nutrients. Indeed, some data reported by the Indian government in 2013 show that 33.5% of women in the state of Andhra Pradesh weigh below the threshold established by the World Health Organization (WHO), also declaring that the% 63 of women suffer from anaemia such as % 56.4 of pregnant women, while men reach 20%.The Indian Medical Association also added that resisting to defecate necessity provoke and accumulation of gases in the intestine that damage the inner bacterial flora which becomes weak and don’t protect the intestine from intestinal virus and bacterial infections easily verifiable in case of bad quality of the water. Data show that, 1.7 million cases of diarrhoeal diseases were registered in Andhra Pradesh in 2013, more than half of them in women.

Hygiene Education and the good practices.

The absence of a toilets or a latrine where to defecate, also means not having available clean water to be able to wash hands after defecating. This means that the faeces bacteria are transferred to the hands and contaminate everything that the hands touch, like the food that women cook. Being able to manage one's own hygiene is fundamental in order to avoid many infectious diseases. However, it is necessary to explain the value of this practice, because unfortunately it is not common, especially for those used to defecate in the open. The importance of disease prevention is often not understood because it changes the practices of common use which contrast the willingness to use latrines because they are considered dirty. It is important to act through education and teaching also at school level of which are the unfortunate causes caused by a lack of personal hygiene and defecation outdoors. In this respect, the intervention of many NGOs, such as HEEAL, is vital for the purpose of learning and achieving hygiene practices. In fact, for HEEALS the objectives are schools, where children are the right age to fully understand and not have already rooted improper practices, difficult to change. Through interactive lessons, Heeals promotes and supports personal hygiene education and adequate water use, in order to guarantee children, and adults who learn from children, a healthier life by avoiding many diseases.

-Elisa Stucchi.

Hopes for the Future at HEEALS, and How We Can Make a Difference in the Present

Here at HEEALS we like to keep supporters – family members, friends, and social media followers – in the loop about what’s going on. That’s why we keep a regular blog and social media presence. A lot of the time we tell you about what we are doing or have done, and that type of communication is important! In this blog post, however, we’d like to expand a bit and tell you about what we would like to do in the future. All of these plans were drafted by the director here at HEEALS: Gaurav Kashyap, so if you’re reading through and notice any that speak strongly to you which you would like to get involved in, shoot him an email at communications@heeals.org. Keep in mind that none of these projects are happening currently- they are things that HEEALS would like to implement, but as of right now the NGO does not have the funds or the manpower. We’re always looking for more volunteers or even interns if you’re able to commit to working full time for a few months! So keep reading, and see if one of these projects is something you would like to help us work towards.

Let’s start by introducing the first project: toilet installation. India is the open defecation capital of the world, and this leads to a ton of health risks. Not only are people exposed to more diseases, but a lack of toilet facilities in schools can lead students (especially girls) to drop out early. This project calls for 107 toilets to be installed in locations across all of India. While this is a big project, it’s nice because it can be taken one toilet at a time, so it’s not necessary to raise a huge lump sum to fund the entire project right from the get-go. This plan was what inspired our current project- ‘Water Filters for Haryana and U.P.!’

On to the next project: Pads4Girls. Have you ever watched the movie PadMan? It came out in February 2018 and is based off of the true story of Arunachalam Muruganantham, who, after watching his wife struggle and use unsanitary materials because store-bought sanitary pads were too expensive, designed and built a low-cost pad making machine. The project Pads4Girls involves purchasing one of these pad machines, opening a factory and employing local women to make the pads. This can allow women without a job to grab hold of their own livelihood while at the same time making pads available in the market at a lower retail price. The pads would be sold at different prices depending on the financial ability of the buyer- anyone who is very destitute would be sold pads for next-to-nothing, while people who could afford it a bit more would be able to purchase at a price still below but closer to regular retail cost.

The last project that HEEALS aims to one day put in place needs to be a bit of a secret. This is because, just like the others, it is a brainchild of Gaurav. It is also, however, different from the others in the sense that no project of this sort has ever been done before. It is a project focused on education about sanitary hygiene that will travel all over India and will be funded by corporate sponsors. Not only will sponsors be getting to help with a great cause, but there is also a huge marketing and advertizing potential for them. If you are a business owner and are interested in learning more about what this opportunity to help the community and your business might look like in a few years, send Gaurav an email for more information on this exciting and innovative project!

Not only did we want to tell you today about the projects that HEEALS hopes to one day work on, we also wanted to take some time to expand on the values HEEALS holds. Our name is an acronym, and the letters stand for Health, Education, Environment, And Livelihood Society. As a society (or organization), HEEALS has done many workshops about health and education, and our water filters project which is ongoing right now also has a focus on this direction. The Pads4Girls project which will hopefully be undertaken once HEEALS gets a bit bigger is an example of how this NGO values supporting peoples’ livelihood. But what about the ‘E’ for Environment? While HEEALS doesn’t currently have any ongoing projects about environment, keeping our earth healthy is certainly something that we value strongly. On June 5, 2018 (International Environment Day), the HEEALS team planted ten saplings and put out two blog posts about keeping our earth clean- one about plastic pollution and another about open defecation in India. If you haven’t read them yet, we certainly encourage you to do so! HEEALS also has a catalogue you can browse through which is full of handmade and eco-friendly products. Any funds from items purchased from this catalogue go towards workshops in schools about healthy living. We are also a partner with BlueHorse Group, an organization which sells biodegradable products worldwide.

Are you looking for ways that you can do your part in keeping our environment clean? Is keeping good karma important to you? Are you just trying your best to leave a good mark on this world? If any of this rings true with you, this is a list you might be interested in. We’ve put together a few ways that you can do your part- without needing to dedicate hours every day. Using eco-friendly or biodegradable products in place of plastic (for more information on plastic pollution, follow this link) goes a long way- you’re not just making a better choice in the product you’re using, but you’re also setting a great example for everyone around you. Another amazing option is buying clothes second hand. By reusing clothes and buying second-hand or getting hand-me-downs from friends and family, you’re keeping these fabrics out of the landfill for even longer. If you outgrow a shirt and have no place to donate it, consider making it into a rag, rather than buying new cloth from a store! When one person makes choices like these, the impact (while very good) is minimal. But as more and more people start seeing the value in fixing rather than tossing and begin reusing in as many innovative ways as possible, the impact begins to grow even more.

If you live in the west, it’s possible that this next part applies less to you (but you should still read it). If you live in India, you probably pass second hand clothing shops on the side of the street all the time! These men carry their livelihood on a cart or in the trunk of their car, and then lay out these clothes every morning. Next time you need to purchase a new shirt, consider sifting through their pile to find one you like, rather than heading straight to the mall. Not only are you increasing the life cycle of these clothes before they go to the landfill, but you’re also helping a family to make sure that there’s food on the table every night. The man standing outside selling clothes off of the roof of his old beaten up car for twelve hours a day definitely appreciates the few rupees he makes off of every sale much more than the CEO of any name-brand store ever will. If we want to see a change in the world, if we want to see an end to child labour and help more individuals work their way out of poverty, it can’t be just talk. It needs to be personal choices and individual actions.

            So, bearing that in mind, HEEALS is calling you. We’re asking you personally, to make a commitment. If you’re reading this blog, we’re sure that you hold the same values as we do- the right to health, education, and livelihood, and the necessity of a clean earth. We’re asking you to consider what you can do today, this week, or this month, to make an impact. Don’t just read this blog, think about it for a few minutes and move on with your life. Actually begin making these changes! Choose reusable bags over plastic. Make your own coffee and skip the disposable cup. Ask for your drink without a plastic straw. Shop second hand! We’d love to hear about you doing these things. Send HEEALS a photo* of yourself doing any of them, or making another eco-friendly choice for a chance to be featured on the HEEALS social media sites! If you’re looking to volunteer, give us a call or send us an email! We’d be more than happy to have your help, or if you live too far away to work with HEEALS we can give you advice about other NGO’s or organizations which hold similar values as we do. If you’re looking to support HEEALS financially, send us a message and tell us whether you’d like to support workshops and the work HEEALS does in general, or if you’d like to commit to one of the projects that we’re hoping to initiate in the future.

            The point of this blog was twofold: to help you get to know HEEALS and our hopes and plans for the future a bit better, and also to encourage you to make those choices, changes, sacrifices even, that will help keep our planet cleaner and greener. We love to hear from you, so don’t forget to tell us about what YOU are doing for a chance to make an appearance on our Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Ciao for now!

~ Rachel

*Please send the photos to us by email at communications@heeals.org or send us a private message on Facebook!