Apart from that, it is also the main
cause for rape cases among women
in India, where women are seeking
for a private place to go out in the
fields alone either early in the morn-
ing or at night.
Meanwhile, in Vietnam,
a country which used to practice
open defecation has eliminated the
practice over the past few decades. It
is indeed true that open defecation
now is declining globally but almost
950 million people still routinely
practice it and half of them is practi-
cally living in India.
There are so many organi-
zations and independent bodies
that provide help in order for them
to have access to toilets. The Gates
Foundation has offered grants that
allows them to create latrines which
is not connected to the water supply,
sewer or even electricity in order
to improve the process of the treat-
ment of human waste.
B e -
sides that, India’s government offers
incentives in the form of cash for
them to construct toilets that ini-
tiated with hygiene and sanitation
campaigns, “No Loo, No I Do” that
urges the brides to reject the grooms
if he did not have a latrine at home.
It is because of one true story where
the wife asked for a divorce at court
because of the unavailability of toilet
in her husband’s house which later
on is made to a film.
But aside from lack of la-
trines, the major reasons that can
explain why there is still open def-
ecation in India is that the cultural
norm which has made the practice
to be socially accepted in their soci-
ety. Sue Coates who is the Chief of
WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hy-
giene) at UNICEF said that build-
ing more toilets will not be going to
solve the problem because this is a
practice that you need from the time
you learn on how to walk.
He explained that if a person grows
up in an environment where every-
one around him does it, no matter
how many access he gets to toilet, he
will revert back to his old practice.
India will only be free from open
defecation only when each and ev-
ery one of Indians accept the fact
that they need to use toilets and un-
derstand the use of it which later on
will convince them to do so.
Thus, the World Toilet Day is
an opening on reminding ourselves
of the need to ensure universal ac-
cess to toilets by 2030. Recently,
World Bank country has demon-
strated solutions in moving forward
to the goal of universal access to
sanitation to some countries. There
are six countries altogether which
are Lao PDR, Haiti, India, Egypt,
Mozambique and also Bangladesh.
Together we can achieve the global
milestone which is the number six
of the UN’s list of Sustainable Devel-
opment Goals, clean water and san-
itation.
People in India defecate
freely using the public
toilet.
32 . SASARAN JURNAL KRITIKAN MEDIA