User:JustinePorto/Public toilets in Burundi

Public toilets in Burundi are rare, with no public toilets in the capital Bujumbura despite the government realizing certain parts of the population needed them. As a result, open defecation and public urination were common, especially among men.

Background
A French speaking country, the local words for toilets include toilettes and WC, while the local word for toilet paper is Papier toilette, the word for men's toilet is hommes and the word for women's toilet is femmes.

The quality of public toilets is very low, with most being dirty or poorly maintained. Burundi local Ashura Kisesa was awarded USD$5,000 in 2008 from Faidika na BBC to build commercial public toilets in East and Central Africa. There were no public toilets in the capital in 2018. The government recognized the need to have them, especially for people with diabetes.

Bujumbura lacked public toilets in the 1990s, and men frequently practiced open defecation in ditches. Public urination and open defecation continued to be a problem in the capital and its environs in the 2010s, though the practice was more common among men. To try to deter the practice, Bujumbura Mayor Freddy Mbonimpa in June 2017 established fines of between BIF 5,000 and 20,000 for people caught engaging in the practice but it did little to stop it.

In 2018, around 94% of people in the country had toilets where they lived.

Regional and global situation impacting public toilets in Burundi
Around 2.5 billion people around the world in 2018 did not have access to adequate toilet facilities. Around 4.5 billion people lacked access to proper sanitation. Public toilet access around the world is most acute in the Global South, with around 3.6 billion people, 40% of the world's total population, lacking access to any toilet facilities. 2.3 people in the the Global South do not have toilet facilities in their residence. Despite the fact that the United Nation made a declaration in 2010 that clean water and sanitation is a human right, little has been done in many places towards addressing this on a wider level. There are a lack of public toilets in East Africa.

German notions of cultural codes around the usage of public toilets has been exported to many parts of the world as a result of German colonialism, but many places in Africa and the Pacific continue to challenge those norms around cleanliness well into the 2010s. Local resistance to toilet cleanliness justified further German repression on the part of the local population during their colonial period.

Public toilets, depending on their design, can be tools of social exclusion. The lack of single-sex women's toilets in developing countries makes it harder for women to participate in public life, in education and in the workplace. In developing countries, unisex public toilets have been a disaster because they make women feel unsafe and fail to consider local religious beliefs. Across Africa, open defecation had social consequences. These included loss of dignity and privacy. It also put women at risk of sexual violence.

An issue in developing countries is toilet access in schools. Only 46% of schools in developing countries have them. Many schools around the world in 2018 did not have toilets, with the problem particularly acute in parts of Africa and Asia. Only one in five primary schools on earth had a toilet and only one in eight secondary schools had public toilets. In developing countries, girls are less likely to attend school once they hit puberty if their school does not have adequate hygiene facilities. 344 million children in sub-Saharan Africa did not have a toilet in their home in 2018. The lack of toilet access put these children at risk of water borne diseases.

There are generally two toilet styles in public bathrooms in Africa. One is a traditional squat toilet. The other is a western style toilet with bowl and a place to sit. Only a few places tend to have flush toilets with toilet seats. These include high end hotels and restaurants. Mid-range hotels and restaurants may have a toilet but no seat or may have a squat toilet. Flush toilets are often only found in affluent areas of developing countries.