The Case of Africa: Gender, Water and Development

I recently explored the challenges that menstruating young girls and women (YGAW) face with access to wash, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) facilities. Today, I am focusing on the violent atrocities that YGAW encounter when such facilities are lacking or inadequate. In Sub-S aharan Africa, where the state of sanitation is deteriorating, open defecation continues to remain a common practice. Approximately 215 million people continue to engage in open defecation. This is despite the Sustainable Development Goals proposing that countries must provide adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene for all and end open defecation, paying special attention to the needs of women and girls. Evidently, there is a long way to reaching this target. Informal settlements and WASH   The issue of open defecation is most acute within informal settlements, and Kenya remains a prime example of this. For decades, the government have failed to acknowledge these informal settlements and so the enforcem...