User:JustinePorto/Public toilets in Tonga

Public toilets in Tonga are located at hotels and stand-alone buildings operated by the government. Public toilets are not booked up to sewer systems, and instead use septic systems. The location and maintenance of public toilets can be political in Tonga.

Public toilets
The Tongan for the phrase, "Where is the toilet?" is, "Ko fe 'a e fale malolo?" The Tongan word for bath is kaukau. The Tongan word for woman is fefine, and the word for man is tangata. Most public toilets are Western sit style toilets. Many of the public toilets that do exist are frequently closed. There are public toilets at some hotels. Public toilets have existed since at least the early 1990s in Tonga, many of which were wet or dry pit latrines. Septic systems and any sewage systems were not strong enough in the 1990s for tampons to be thrown into them.

Composting toilets and septic tanks began to be more widely used in Tonga in the 1990s, which spurred the growth of public toilet installation, but local councils rarely maintained these facilities and the underlying infrastructure. In the 1990s, despite the Environmental Management Plan, human waste disposal in public toilets, hotels, government buildings and local residences was often done in ways that created environmental and health risks.

A man abducted a 6-year-old girl in at Talamahu Market on 4 April 2004 and forced her into the public toilets there. She was rescued after the door was smashed in.

As part of the Prime Minister's efforts to win national elections in 2017, he ordered the hiring of attendants for public toilets in Nuku'alofa. Earlier in his tenure, the government announced plans to renovate the public toilets at Neiafu but by 2017 had only hired attendants to maintain them. These public toilets had limited operating hours.

Regional and global situation impacting public toilets in Tonga
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.

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. Western style sit toilets are more popular among the emerging middle and upper class around the world.

Homosexual American servicemen sometimes used public toilets in bigger cities in the Pacific during World War II as places to have trysts.