Answering nature’s call was once a nightmare for Rashida Begum, who had to creep around the jungle for a suitably private spot. Her home had no toilet, like the thousands of others in her crowded cluster of farming villages outside the capital.
Some 500 children die every day from lack of safe water and sanitation in sub-Saharan Africa, the UN Chidlren's Fund (UNICEF) said on Tuesday.
When street sweeper Ding Quan, 58, paused to warm himself at a roadside fire after putting in a hard shift in driving snow, little did he suspect that it would cost him job.
With one out of three women worldwide lacking access to safe toilets, it is a moral imperative to end open defecation to ensure women and girls are not at risk of assault and rape simply because they lack a sanitation facility, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Wednesday.
Kenya will channel resources towards behavior change campaigns in order to improve sanitation at household and community level, officials said on Wednesday during the World Toilet Day.
The international community should help more than one billion women and girls across the world who rely on dark nights and quiet moments to relieve themselves because they "do not have access to sanitation."
UN Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson on Wednesday called upon the international community to "break the silence" on open defecation and aid the 2.5 billion people across the world that live without basic sanitation.
A joint United Nations agency report on Monday warned that without a major funding push, some 2.4 billion people -- one-third of the world's population -- will remain without access to improved sanitation in 2015.