With This Toilet I Thee Wed: No Toilet, No Bride!

*SENSITIVE MATERIAL*

When you get past the potty humor on this one, you begin to sympathize with women of India. With less than 30% of people in India with access to toilets, "no toilet, no bride," has become a rallying cry for women raising a stink about the lack of a basic amenity. It is considered a human rights issue, especially since so much of India is rural and lacks basic necessities like running water and toilets. Approximately 46.3% of urban households were still without safe drinking water supply.

World Health Organization and UNICEF estimate the number of people in India without toilets is higher- one out of two, in other words, 50%. That means that out of the 1.2 billion people around the world who are forced to defecate in the open, half live in India. That is not a pleasant statistic. Yet, few Indians would challenge it, as the embarrassing evidence is before our eyes everywhere we look.

It was that way in Sunariyan Kalan in the northern state of Haryana. Sumitra Rathi said village women had no choice but to relieve themselves without privacy. They wait until sundown to relieve themselves in the field so that no one will see them. The indignity is overwhelming.

Since 1996, about 250 toilets have been built for the village of Sunariyan Kalan.Still these aren't any covered bathrooms.

The problem is so big in India that the country would need to construct 112,000 toilets every day if it wants to meet its sanitation goal by 2012, according to the Ministry of Rural Development.

Even though India is emerging as a global power, so many of it's people are still living in abject poverty. To help overcome the enormity of the sanitation challenge, the government is offering incentives to encourage villagers to build bathrooms. The poorest of the poor in Haryana stands to receive Rs. 2,200 ($48) for each toilet they install, said P.S. Yadav, a state coordinator for the sanitation campaign.

Toilets are such a colossal issue that girls in India are dropping out of school. Illiteracy rates for girls in India is 50% because of the lack of toilets. As many as 498 schools in the Kendrapada district do not have toilets in their campuses. Parents now prefer admitting their girl child in neighbouring schools having the basic sanitation facilities. To deal with the situation, authorities have been directed to ensure construction of toilet facilities in all schools by the end of this month, a senior official said.

According to targets set by the Orissa state government, separate toilets are to be provided for girls in all upper primary and high schools. This means that Orissa would need a total of 70,000 toilets for its 51,772 government and aided schools. Today, the state has managed to build only a little over half this number.

Prospective in-laws cry out "no loo, no ‘I do'. There ideal son in-law doesn't drink, is financially established, is a vegetarian, and has a toilet. Imagine for a moment the right of passage of having your daughter picked up for her date.She looks gorgeous. As she primps in the bathroom, her little sister runs into the bathroom exclaiming, "Fahta! He's soooooo cute! And he has a toilet!" The basic necessity we Americans take for granite is a luxury in other parts of the world.

And, in an interesting twist of fate, the societal preference for boys there has become an unlikely source of power for Indian women. The abortion of female fetuses in favor of sons - an illegal but widespread practice - means there are more eligible bachelors than potential brides, allowing women and their parents to be more selective when arranging a match. As one male laments, "I will have to work hard to afford a toilet. We won't get any bride if we don't have one now."

India's rapid urbanization has also contributed to rising aspirations in small towns and villages. On a crowded highway that runs into this village, about 170 miles north of New Delhi, young women, once seen clinging to the backs of motorbikes driven by their fathers or husbands, now drive their own scooters. One recent popular TV ad shows a rural girl sheepishly entering a scooter showroom, then beaming as she whizzes through the parking lot on her new moped. It's these changing times for females in developing countries that are making men hard pressed to prove themselves and step up to the plate when they want to marry.

And, it's not just changing times and changing opinions between the sexes that are driving this trend for better sanitation. The lack of sanitation is not only an inconvenience but also contributes to the spread of diseases such as diarrhea, typhoid and malaria. The toll on human health is grim. Every day, 1,000 children younger than 5 years old die in India from diarrhea, hepatitis- causing pathogens and other sanitation-related diseases, according to the United Nations Children's Fund. Malnourished children are more susceptible to diarrheal disease, and with more diarrheal disease they become more malnourished.

Another reason for the spike in disease is that when women have their menstrual, they are facing the worst exposure to all sorts of hygiene and blood-born disease. It is also nearly impossible to defecate in public especially under these circumstances.

There should be no reason why women have to dodge leering men and stick-wielding farmers and avoiding spots that her neighbors had soiled, before pulling up her dress to defecate in public.

It should be noted that every year, more than 200 million tons of human sewage goes uncollected and untreated, fouling the environment. Each gram of feces can contain 10 million virus particles, 1 million bacteria, 1,000 parasite cysts and 100 parasite eggs, the UN found.

The most unfathomable consideration must be made with the Hindu caste system. The lowest social stratum is subjugated to the unsavory realm of latrines. For some 4,000 years, so-called bhangis or untouchables earned a modest living by scraping "night soil" from the cavernous household toilet pits of higher castes and carrying it away in pans balanced on their heads. It is taboo to talk about fecal matter or "night soil" in Indian culture.

We need to bring it to the media's attention, and to the government, that women have rights, and humans are not to be treated in this fashion. By killing female fetuses for desired males, by making our women defecate in public, and by opening all of us up to disease and death, we have depraved our human race. In these modern times, we shouldn't be having discussions about the lack of the most basic necessities. We have put men on the moon, we have created the infertile to have obscene amount of children at one time, and we have waged wars with the finest technologies. Why are our people being degraded to the lowest, non-human standards unable to be described? We are all children of God. No matter where you stand in politics or abortion, social issues or the economy, we owe it to all our brothers and sisters by making this world a livable place!