One million Kenya adolescents lack access to toilet facilities

As many as close to one million Kenyan adolescents do not have a toilet facility, the latest Kenya Adolescents and Health Survey released by the Ministry of Health recently, shows.

“Nationally, 8.4 percent of respondents, about 977, 082, did not have a toilet facility,” the survey conducted between 2019 and 2020 shows and rates Nairobi, East Africa’s economic hub as the region in Kenya where most of the households share latrines at 76.1 percent.

The Ministry pointed out that this could be an indication the country is generally experiencing poor sanitation and hygiene. According to the 2019 national and household census, there were 11, 631, 929 adolescents aged between 10-19 year, about 24.5 percent compared to 9, 204,398, an estimated 23.8 percent in 2009.

Nairobi is closely followed by Upper Eastern at 55.8 percent of residents without toilets as another challenge of open defecation emerges where young people grow up not knowing a toilet, according to the Kenya Adolescent and Health Survey 2019/20, the latest conducted by the Ministry of Health.

“The North Rift region is leading with the number of adolescents in the country who still practice open defecation at 80 percent,” the survey released recently notes, pointing out that urban areas are crowded by households that share toilets at 55.8 percent compared to the rural population which commands a lesser burden at 24.1 percent.

This is followed by the North Eastern region at 66.5 percent, meaning that the young population in this area have no toilet facilities and defecate in the bushes and open fields.

The KAHS found out that the most common toilet type nationally was a pit latrine with slab at 33.6 percent, followed by pit latrine without slab at 21.4 percent and an improved pit latrine with ventilation at 17.4 percent.

While both rural and urban at 36.5 percent and 28.9 percent residents had the pit latrine with slab as the common toilet type, respectively.

“This is an indication that there are challenges with regard to sanitation,” the survey concludes.
In the survey, it was also noted that the bucket toilet was common in North Eastern at 6.5 percent and Nairobi at 1.5 percent.

It also emerged that the majority of those who were surveyed indicated that they did not share latrines with other households at 63.6 percent. This trend was observed in all regions except Nairobi and Upper eastern as indicated.

“Nationally it was indicated that less than 10 households shared latrines at 64.4 percent while 33.5 percent had more than 10 households sharing a latrine,” the survey shows, noting that Nairobi had the highest proportion of respondents at 62.7 percent with more than 10 households sharing a latrine.
The survey shows that this was more common in the rural areas than the urban.

In the Eastern region of the country, the survey findings indicate that there were no toilet facilities as well, and young people were forced to use the bushes and open fields as well, therefore a possibility of exposure to common diarrheal illnesses.

Further, the study established that in regions like Nairobi, 62.7 percent of respondents indicated that there were more than 10 households sharing a latrine. This could be attributed to the urban informal settlements and therefore the adolescents are exposed to challenges related to sanitation.

The authors of the survey recommended for the enforcement of the public health Act cap 242 that each household must have a latrine; feacal waste should be safely disposed onsite or transported and treated off-site in urban areas; and latrines should be hygienic to use and easy to clean.

There is also the need to put in place measures to end open defecation at household levels through open defecation free (ODF) campaigns.

According to the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene, Africa lags behind global progress in providing water and sanitation in schools. In Kenya, only half of the schools have basic sanitation facilities with 84 per cent of rural schools without hygiene facilities.

The statistics on sanitation are scary, as currently the world is not on track to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), particularly when it comes to the issue of sanitation.

The 2014 United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) update on the Progress on Drinking Water and Sanitation states that out of the 69 countries that are not on target to meet the MDG target for both drinking water and sanitation, 35 are in Sub-Saharan Africa.

More Articles

---