TOTAL SANITATION

Introduction

Sanitation is one of the essential necessities of human life and its dignity. Access to sanitation services is a basic right implied in the Constitution of Pakistan under the Article 9, “No person shall be deprived of life or liberty, save in accordance with the law.” United Nations General Assembly, on 28 July 2010, through Resolution 64/292, explicitly recognized the human right to water and sanitation and acknowledged that clean drinking water and sanitation are essential to the realisation of all human rights. Poor sanitation harms the human health also gives birth to multiple socio-economic and environmental concerns. Inadequate disposal of human excreta and personal hygiene are associated with a range of diseases including polio, diarrheal diseases, jaundice, typhoid, malaria, dengue viral fever and cholera. The economic costs poor bear for cure of these diseases (i.e. expense on medical treatment, loss of productive time and loss of income) pushes them deeper into the vicious cycle of poverty, and the economic cost of poor water and sanitation services is estimated to be around 3.94% of the GDP of Pakistan.Under Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Safely Managed Sanitation services are defined as: population using an improved sanitation facility (including a hand washing facility with water and soap) that is not shared with other households and where the excreta are safely disposed in situ or transported and treated off-site.