User:JustinePorto/Public toilets in Chad

Public toilets in Chad are rare at a rate of less than one per 100,000 people. Pit latrines are one of the most common types of toilets, and open defecation is still practiced.

Public toilets
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.

A 2021 study found there was one public toilet per 100,000 people.

Public toilets can be found at bus stations. Many public toilets are pit latrines, which may or may not have a door. Buses do not have toilets on board, and some bus routes in more rural areas have toilet breaks that involve people getting off and engaging in open defecation at the site, with men going on one side and women going on the other.

History
As a result of a civil war in Chad, many people fled and became refugees in Libya in the early 1980s. Local authorities built public toilets in Libyan refugee camps, but many Chadian refused to use communal toilets, preferring open defecation instead.

Regional and global situation impacting public toilets in Chad
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.

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.

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. Flush toilets are often only found in affluent areas of developing countries.