User:JustinePorto/Public toilets in Vanuatu

Public toilets in Vanuatu are often low quality pay toilets, with restaurants sometimes letting customers use their toilets for free. Public toilets have been used as part of local tourism efforts. The issue of public toilets in Vanuatu is one faced by many other developing countries around the globe.

Public toilets
Public toilets in Vanuatu, and Port Vila specifically, in often charged around 40 vatu to use. Some restaurants let customers use their toilets for free.

Public toilets in Port Vila are low quality. These toilets were often pay toilets, with the cost being around 40 vatu. Some were located at the market and near the Port Vila Pub. Club Nautique on the Palikulo Peninsula had public toilets and showers.

A public toilet in Paunangisu labeled its newly opened public toilets the "the best public toilet in the South Pacific" in 2016. The local government made this announcement with the goal of improving tourist activity in the village. The toilet cost 200 vatu to use for international tourists, with large groups getting a discount of 75%. Locals were required to pay 50 vatu to use. Money earned from the toilet was invested back in the local community. The toilets were constructed after Cyclone Pam destroyed the previous public toilets and the local school in 2015.

The Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education created an intiative to improve the quality of toilets in schools in the early 2000s.

Regional and global situation impacting public toilets in Vanuatu
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. In developing countries, unisex public toilets have been a disaster because they make women feel unsafe and fail to consider local religious beliefs.

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

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