User:JustinePorto/Public toilets in Narau

Public toilets in Narau are rare. Ones found in schools and detention centers are often broken. Public toilet access is a problem that plagues the region.

Public toilets
Public toilets were available in Ewa. Few were located in other parts of Narau. Ground water is generally not drinkable in Narau. Some wells do exist, with the water being used for showers, toilets and gardening. Public composting toilets started to be built in Narau in the 2010s as a way of trying to protect the local ground water supply.

School toilets in the 2000s generally were in very poor condition and often did not function.

In 2012, the Offshore Processing Centre 3 toilets did not work well, with the toilets often being blocked or overflowing, resulting in poop being on the floor. This in turn attracted flies. Toilet paper was often left in large piles next to the toilets. It made the whole center smell like a sewer. The poor toilet condition meant some women and children tried to avoid drinking water so they would not have to use the toilet. The toilets used by Australian asylum seekers at Nauru College in the 2010s were unsanitary and often broken.

Regional and global situation impacting public toilets in Narau
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.

Around one in three women in the world in 2016 lacked access to a toilet. 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.

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 the 1980s and 1990s, many people in the Pacific region had the misconception that HIV and AIDS could be transmitted by using public toilets.

Foreigners visiting the South Pacific in the 1990s were advised to bring their own white toilet paper, and tampons or sanitary napkins as they were not commonly found in the region. Septic systems and any sewage systems were not strong enough in the 1990s for tampons to be thrown into them.

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.