UN World Toilet Day was observed this week. This year’s theme is: when nature calls. And it addresses links between open air defection and mass-scale water and soil contamination. Thereby turning the environment into an open sewer. The statistics speak for themselves. Some 4.5 billion people worldwide do not have access to a safe toilet. And of the 892 million who resort to open air defecation — 79 million live here in Pakistan. Indeed, this county ranks as the seventh worst in the world when it comes to accessing basic sanitation; with 42 percent of the population living without this fundamental right. All of which ought to be an enormous embarrassment for a nuclear-armed parliamentary democracy. To be fair, Prime Minister Imran Khan made this part of his ‘Clean and Green Pakistan’ campaign that was launched last month. And while important, it does not address the urgent need to build more lavatories. Particularly for women and girls; both in rural areas and urban centres. Indeed, it is hoped that a government committed to education for all will prioritise this issue. A wealth of literature already exists on the impact of non-availability of access to safe toilets on school-aged girls. The overriding fallout being that families often prefer to pull the plug on education rather than having their daughters run the additional risk of finding a toilet; or else an open space in which to defecate. Thus it must be made mandatory for each school to have a clean and functioning separate washroom for female pupils. This is crucial in getting girls back into the classroom. It is a case of twin fundamental rights. Pakistan must get serious about honouring the social contract between citizenry and state in this regard. This is to say nothing of its international obligations. For the country has little more than a decade to meet UN Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG): “to ensure the availability and sustainable management of sanitation and water for all by 2030”. The hard work must therefore begin right now. Because access to clean and safe toilets is not just a matter of keeping foreign tourists happy. * Published in Daily Times, November 20th 2018.