User:JustinePorto/Public toilets in Eritrea

Public toilets in Eritrea are rare and open defecation is common. Some municipal governments have had plans to improve their public toilet situation.

Public toilets
A plan was created by the municipal government of Asmara to construct and renovate existing public toilets in 2010. Public toilets in Asmara were renovated in 2013.

WaterAid said in 2016 that the country ranked in the top ten in the world for countries where public defecation was most common. In 2000, the countries with the lowest sanitation coverage in Africa were Ethiopia, Eritrea, Benin, Congo, Gabon and Niger.

Regional and global situation impacting public toilets in Eritrea
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.

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