Rape reality for women without indoor bathrooms
Teenage cousins Pushpa, left, and Murti, right, were raped and murdered going to the bathroom
I posted a picture earlier in my journey poking fun at having to go to the bathroom in a tobacco field while out at a rural health camp. I was nervous that first time, thinking about rats, feral dogs and other critters attempting to crawl up my kurta. Also, I had to make sure I did not make a mess on my clothing; I had forgotten to bring my Go Girl on this trip. All I thought about was cleaning up afterward with my wet wipes and hand sanitizer.
Recent events have open my eyes to why my petty squeamish fears are barely concerns for many women having to go to the bathroom outdoors. For them, the real risks are physical and sexual violation. Simply going to the bathroom can become a matter of life or death for women without toilets in their homes.
Two months ago, two girls set out one evening to an open field to relieve themselves in Badaun, a village located in Northern India. At some point , a group of men gang raped, then hung the 14 and 16 year old cousins from a mango tree (see photo on right). Three brothers from the area confessed and were arrested for rape; they claim they are innocent of murder. Two other perpetrators still remain at large.
This incident happened a little over month before I arrived, but there has been a increase in news coverage of the event in the past week. This is because the men were released on bail due to "lack of evidence" to justify keeping them in jail- despite their confessions and witness reports. Reading the paper each day I am realizing that this, unfortunately, is not an isolated incident. Rather, this is a daily reality for a significant portion of the population living here. This is because India has the highest number of people in the world who have to go to the bathroom in the open, according to UNICEF. Nearly half (47%) of the population lack access to basic sanitation (including clean, running water). What is more shocking is that the United Nations reports Indians have more access to mobile phones than to toilets. Even in cases where families could afford it, many spend the money on other "luxury items" (e.g. televisions or motorcycles). This is primarily because when, where, and with whom to go to the bathroom is not a concern for men- the ones primarily in charge of household expenditures, like building a bathroom in the house.
On the surface this sounds like serious combination of safety, hygiene and sanitation concerns. But there are clearly additional socio- cultural layers linked to gender and violence for those women whose only option is to defecate in the open. Both news and research reports illustrate how vulnerable women are to sexual violence when going to and from public facilities, or using open fields. Citing results from a 2011 WaterAid study, the BBC news reported that women living in urban slums of Delhi spoke of specific incidents of girls under 10 "being raped while on their way to use a public toilet".
When this happens, there are few options for those women willing to come foward or seek help. In the case of these two murdered teens, people who actually saw the girls being abducted did not stop the men for fear of their own safety. The three brothers involved in the rape fought off a relative of the girls, while another witness was chased away with a pistol. Worse, two police officers allegedly rebuffed the victims' parents when they reported that the girls had gone missing. The father of one victim’s father stated that the police of ignored his pleas for help because they belong to the caste formerly known as 'untouchables'- even when he outlined what witnesses had told hm. According to reports, the first thing the police asked the father was what caste the girls came from. And when they were told the girls were Dalits, the police didn't bother entertaining the father’s implorations. This response was also not surprising because the brothers who raped and murdered the girls are members of the dominant Yadav caste, to which most of the local police also belong. Two officers have since been charged with conspiracy and negligence of duty- some say only due to the media attention given to the incident.
Still, neglectful responses to these types of violations against women is not unusual. Police apparently don’t do anything when women or family members come forward to seek justice or help. Further, women or young girls’ mothers often don’t report or talk about what happened because the social implications of violated sexuality can lead to difficulties finding a marriage partner (see my previous blog about the importance of marriage for women).
The entire situation about violence against women seems so overwhelming and so difficult to address. As I am noting through my research, culture and sexuality issues here are clearly informed by a lont legacy of inter-caste discrimination, patriarchal attitudes, and economics. I never expected to have to think about the links between violence against women and the everyday act of going to the bathroom- but culture and context shape most of our sexual health realities.
Fortunately, there are people who are taking action beyond the current protests and calls for political and judicial changes. For example, the Gates Foundation set up a challenge to "reinvent" a toilet that can accommodate the limited resources often found in India. The requirements are that it 1) can't have to be connected to the water grid, sewer grid, or electricity grid, 2) needs to kill all of the pathogens so that what comes out of their toilets doesn't smell or make anybody sick, and 3) has to be cheap. A team from Cal-Tech’s winning design is one of three now being tested in India. Although it only costs 5 cents per user per day and meets all the other Gates Foundation requirements, the toilet still costs $1,500 to build and install.
Social entrepreneur Bindeshwar Pathak has also come forward with an offer to build a toilet for every house in the village where the rape and hanging took place. He had done this before in the bordering state village of Hir Mathala. Using a simple two-pit design, his low-maintenance, low-cost toilet (about $250 USD- a future fundraising goal for FIU’s Women’s Studies?) has been put into the villages 144 homes. Said one woman in an interview about her new toilet "There has been a huge change in our lives. Before, the men would follow us, wait for us to sit in the field and watch. Now, thanks to Mr. Pathak, we have a lavatory at home. We don't need to step out, and we feel better. Our dignity which is an ornament for us- is now safe."
But if you are not one of these fortuate few, you will have to simply rely upon other women to ensure your safety when going to the bathroom away from home. This includes planning to go in groups, timing the trip to coincide with when other women will be there, or paying to use one of the community toilets that may be some distance away. In fact, the mother of one of the murdered girls she always went with her daughter to use the bathroom in the fields for fear of her safety. But this one time she had let them go alone together because she had to help a sick relative.
After I started following this story, I paid closer attention to what was going on around me when using the fields or in a “resource limited” washroom. In my case, I always felt safe and was in the company of others; also, I typically was there during the day and within shouting distance of those I travelled to the rural communities with. But squatting in the field last week, I did think about how vulnerable I could be if I were alone or with just one or two other women. Also, as defecating openly in the middle of the day is often viewed as embarrassing for many women, I would have had to wait until early in the morning or early evening to go- no matter how I felt. For me, having to limit my bathroom trips to specific times of the day would be stressful.
Sadly, for these two teens- who did what hundreds of millions of women have to do each day- it cost them their lives.
