User:JustinePorto/Public toilets in Lesotho

Public toilets in Lesotho are often pit latrine toilets that are not maintained by the government. Schools often have inadequate toilet facilities. Some prisons have flush toilets.

Public toilets
Some preschools, especially unregistered ones, lack toilets, and youngster need to engage in open defecation as a result. Some primary schools do not have toilets that are adapted for children, causing them issues with being able to use them as they are not height appropriate. Some girls cannot attend secondary school during their period because the schools do not provide sanitary products and the students cannot afford them. Girls put themselves at risk of rape when using public toilets or public washing facilities, particularly at night. Some boarding schools restrict student water usage for bathing and showering to less than 2 liters each time. In the Katse dam area, there is a school where the facility is a tent; despite serving 30 students, it does not have any toilets for student use.

Communal cells for men at the Lesotho Correctional Service have stainless steel sit style flush toilets, along with sinks which allowed prisoners to wash their hands. Some Lesotho Correctional Service toilet facilities provided soap for men and women to use to wash their hands, but not always; it often came down to current budget availability.

Gender non-conforming people faced potential discrimination and violence when using public toilets.

Some Shoprite have toilets for customers, but they sometimes charge 2 Rands to use. This can quickly make the facilities too expensive to use.

While the government built a number of pit latrine toilets around the country between 1998 and 2000, the government rarely returned to empty the latrines. Some leaked as a result, or were dependent on local residents to maintain them. In the 1990s, some mothers abandoned their children, leaving them in places like public toilets, shrubs, drinking places or with friends and family.

Open defecation and sanitation
Progress began to be made in general waste management in the 1990s.

Regional and global situation impacting public toilets in Lesotho
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, girls are less likely to attend school once they hit puberty if their school does not have adequate hygiene facilities.

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