Lack of toilets add to female flood survivors’ misery

Zubaida, 31, along with her family has been taking refuge in a roadside makeshift camp in Jhuddo in Sindh’s Mirpurkhas district. She was forced to flee after devastating flood water inundated her village in Badin.  She gets infuriated if she is asked if toilets are available at the camp. “You are asking about washroom! There is no washroom here,” she said, agitated. “Utilizing our meager earnings, we had built a washroom in the village with some baked and unbaked bricks, but there is no sign of any washroom here.”

Zubaida is one of thousands of women who have been forced by the unprecedented flooding to leave their homes and move into relief camps that have mushroomed across the province. A lack of proper toilets at these camps pose a health hazard to all but has put women and young girls in a more miserable state as they have no access to a safe place to take a shower or fulfill nature’s call.

Sehrish Khokhar, a Sukkur-based journalist, said women go to a secluded place away from the camps in a group to relieve themselves. They take turns and hold rillis, a traditional Sindhi quilt, or cloth sheets to make a cover.

Khokhar, who has been frequenting tent camps in the city and surrounding areas for the past 15 to 16 days, said she couldn’t find a functioning toilet facility there, nor were there lady doctors available at medical camps to tend to ailing women.

In a society where women traditionally veil themselves, privacy breach and threat to modesty in the absence of lavatories have compounded the miseries of displaced women. They wait a long day and go to desolate spots when the darkness descends to relieve their natural needs. Incidents of harassment or men watching women as they squat have also come to the light in several areas, leaving them more anxious and insecure.

Volunteers working at flood relief camps say women eat less and drink less to save themselves the ordeal of having to relieve themselves in the open frequently, which is taking a heavy health toll on the malnourished women, including pregnant women.

Most people have made a temporary toilet near their shelters using wood and chaddars at the Jhuddo camp. Zubaida lamented that she and other women are forced to use contaminated rainwater for washing purposes in the absence of clean water.

“People in rural areas see relieving themselves in the open as the easiest way to deal with their natural needs,” said Dr Sajida Abro, who is working with a welfare organisation in flood-hit areas. “Now that they have to live there, open defecation is causing various diseases [among them].” This factor coupled with swarms of mosquitoes and flies have created a breeding ground for diseases and infections, affecting every third person at these camps, she said.

Abro pointed out that holding urine for longer periods and using contaminated water for washing purposes is causing urinary tract infections (UTIs) among women, adding that these infections can also affect lungs if not cured in a timely manner. She said women hesitate to discuss the problem even with lady doctors, due to which the disease is not treated and deteriorates over time.

In some areas, lady doctors do not exist at all and it is unreasonable to expect women to seek treatment from male doctors in a conservative society like ours, she maintained.

Sehrish said several medical camps have been set up in the city centres away from shelters for the flood victims who are asked to come there. “How can they go there and get treatment if they don’t have fare,” she asked.

Dr Zahid Iqbal, the health department’s focal person on rain emergencies in Badin district, told ARY News that medical camps have been set up at six spots in the district and mobile units are also present at various locations. Each camp has two male and two female doctors, he added.

He said that skin ailments and diarrhoeal diseases are rampant among flood victims due to poor sanitation and consumption of contaminated water while pregnant women suffer from anemia.

Worsening menstrual health crisis

Calls for provision of menstrual hygiene products to flood-hit women has triggered a debate on social media with some users, terming sanitary pads a luxury of urban women, wondered if women in rural areas know how to use them.

Most women at the roadside camp in Jhuddo were not familiar with sanitary napkins but described menstrual days as an added challenge.

“It is very difficult to go to washrooms with men all around here. Our misery mounts during these days,” 20-year-old Hajira said.

In normal circumstances, she said, women use a piece of cloth to soak up the discharge. “Usually, all women wash and reuse cloth pads but there are no supplies here and there is this dirty rainwater to wash them. What should we do? Where should we go? It’s just difficult,” Hajira said, sounding helpless.

15-year-old Yasmin, however, is familiar with sanitary pads as she has seen their commercials on TV and even used them once. “I washed pads after using them and then disposed of them. Throwing them away without washing is a sin,” she said.

Faryal Ahmed, a volunteer of a welfare organisation, said the organisation has not only supplied sanitary products to displaced women but also educated them on how to use them.

Dr Sajida Abro said that poor menstrual hygiene could cause infections and diseases in reproductive organs, which can lead to complications during pregnancy or childbirth. She added it can also cause infertility.