AN ADVENTURE IN ADDIS

I’m sure this has already been done but I haven’t come across it yet, despite my new obsession, some research into the link between the construction of toilets, their suitability for women and gender equality.

Since I’ve been here, I’ve heard so often about the lack of toilet facilities for women or lack of toilets in general; that teenage girls in the countryside get up at 4am to go out in the dark to do their business so they don’t get bullied by the boys at school or stop going to school altogether.

Men just pee anywhere, cigarette in hand and there’s an assumption that women don’t need to, if they are thought about at all.

There is a general disregard for sanitation. A friend who works at a college in Dessie, told me that because of the massive expansion in the student population, (students are being housed in buildings originally intended to be classrooms) and the fact that the concrete toilet blocks were so far away, the students had been advised to pee in the corridors. I suppose similar to Versailles, but without the heavy curtains that must have helped to mask the smells.

But I do feel the total disregard of women’s toilet needs
is symptomatic of the wider attitude to women here. I know that I have quite a skewed perception of Ethiopian women, working with educated and liberal ones, and Addis as the capital is a much more tolerant place compared to the rest of the country.

So it’s easy to forget that the literacy rate for women is 35.2% compared to 50% for men, on average women have 7 children (only 6% of births are attended by a midwife), female genital mutilation is still practiced and in the Somali region there are no female teachers. In fact the kiosk opposite the office is staffed by a girl of about 8, while her brothers all get to go to school.

There has been a huge amount of funding and support to educate women about their rights and empower them, which will mostly have to stop thanks to the new charity law. But I just sense that if the designers of buildings or long distance bus drivers were forced to consider the fact that women need to go to the toilet too, it might have a wider impact on how they think and act towards women.

I want to see a huge billboard in Amharic saying ‘Girls go too’ with a picture of Barbie sitting on a toilet, actually I wonder whether it would translate so well…