Unveiling the hidden role of women in sanitation: celebrating World Toilet Day 2022 in Freetown

By Braima Koroma, Abdulai Turay, Ibrahim Bakarr Bangura, Amadu Kamara-Labor, Jamiatu Sesay, Emmanuel Osuteye

Women play a significant role in both household and community sanitation practices, quite often unpaid as compared to men. Often, women are under-represented in sanitation decision-making, governance and management structures, even though they do most of the unpaid work in homes which includes childcare, caring for the sick and the elderly, cleaning of sanitation facilities, disposing of bucket toilets, and collecting water for sanitation. Their unpaid work in sanitation has been essential in ensuring safer and more sustainable sanitation within households and communities.

Considering this, the Freetown OVERDUE project team decided to increase the visibility of women’s unpaid role in sanitation, and to raise awareness on the need for women’s inclusion in sanitation management and governance structures at all levels (household level, community level, public and private institutions) to ensure safer and more sustainable sanitation practices.

Showing participants with banners and messaging plank cards required for the effective dissemination of sanitation messages and the significance of World Toilet Day celebration.

This was central to celebration of World Toilet Day 2022 organized by the OVERDUE Freetown team. Composed of the Sierra Leone Urban Research Center (SLURC), the Centre of Dialogue on Human Settlement and Poverty Alleviation (CODOHSAPA) and the Federation of Urban and Rural Poor (FEDURP) together with the Freetown City Council (FCC), Directorate of Environmental Health and Sanitation (MOHS), Women from the three (3) case study areas, Sanitation workers collectives, Women in sanitation service provision, NGOs working on Sanitation at the city and informal settlement communities, Freetown City Council, and Community Leaders, the team came together to co-design the campaign messages on women’s sanitation work needs which was shared on a tour across the city.

The theme for the celebration “making women’s role in sanitation visible” focused on the unrecognized role of women in sanitation. This was a reminder of women’s significant role in handling household sanitation even though their efforts were often overlooked or ignored in sanitation governance structures and decision-making.

Radio Discussions: A panel of participants, including sanitation champions such as public toilet caretakers and Freetown City Council employees, discussing at the Radio Democracy 98.1 to raise awareness and popularize the World Toilet Day event before the actual celebration.

The key activities before and during the celebration included:

  • Engagement in Radio and TV live discussions (Radio Democracy 98.1; AYV television) with selected women’s sanitation workers drawn from the community and public toilets facility, and the Freetown City Council to raise awareness on the WTD celebration and the roles of women in households/community to ensure safe and dignified sanitation in Freetown.
  • Embarking on a sanitation tour/rally across the city and particularly prioritizing case study areas (Dworzark, Abacha Street and Eastern Police Market Area and Colbot community) – street parade holding flyers, banners, stickers displaying the key messages and women’s performing sanitation practices skits at key road intersections across the city.  Stickers with key messages were pasted in important locations along the sanitation tour route to further raise awareness of women’s role in sanitation work. 
  • Presentation of certificates in recognition and appreciation of women working in sanitation (public and community toilets caretakers).
Certification: Certificate of recognition of women’s sanitation workers working in some of the public toilet facilities across the city.

In Freetown and most communities in Sierra Leone, women carry the main burden of caring: they care for those who are sick often due to the spread of disease as a result of our poor sanitation infrastructure. Although they are the main sanitation providers, and caretakers, they are themselves excluded from meetings and decisions around sanitation.

Therefore, to ease the burden of the invisible and unpaid role women play in sanitation, we produced and showcased the following key advocacy messages:

  • “Women should take the lead in sanitation work” (uman dem for tinap bifoe pa kaka woke)
  • “Support and strengthen women’s participation in sanitation governance” (leh wi bato uman den 4 dae bifoe pa kaka woke)
  • “Women should have a say in sanitation work” (uman for get saying pa kaka woke)
  • “Women’s voices should be heard in sanitation work” (uman for get voice pa kaka bizness)
Displaying sanitation messages: this photo illustrates a group of participants, including security officers displaying various sanitation-related messages on different-sized papers to raise awareness about safe sanitation.

The importance of women in sanitation cannot be overstated, and from our standpoint, women can play a larger role in changing things for the better. Nonetheless, our society’s social construct has been a significant impediment to achieving this reality; thus, women must be recognized and fully involved in sanitation work. In the eyes of the general public, celebrating World Toilet Day seems like a strange occasion to commemorate. Many inhabitants acknowledge that they never thought to celebrate the toilets before and that this needs to be repeated to strengthen awareness-raising.

“Witnessing such a strange but wonderful celebration makes me proud to be a woman because it is my first time seeing a celebration centred on honouring women for the vital role we play in sanitation; in the future, I believe the celebration should have a national focus”.

Participant of the Freetown World Toilet Day Celebration
Motorcade: This image shows the leading vehicle in the city parade. It housed the majority of the equipment, including the PA system and comedians who could be seen by the general public displaying acts that lead to clean sanitation. The remaining vehicles transported participants who came down from point to point to do the dissemination, notably in the agreed-upon communities and congested areas of the City Center.

Views from the public

“This celebration has given me an eye opener that there is dignity in sanitation work and so, women should come out from their hiding places and take the lead in sanitation. In subsequent celebrations, I suggest that the word Kaka (faeces) be modified because it is too broad to be pronounced that way.”

Street trader

“Based on the messages disseminated today, I have come to terms with my thoughts that it is not appropriate to dump non-faecal materials into toilet pits because it aids early filling and makes emptying extremely difficult. I used to do it but henceforth, I decease from such acts. Also, for the safety and dignity of women, I think it is high time women are incorporated into the system of manning public toilet facilities.”

Abacha Street market

“Today, I’ve learned that women must not overlook sanitation-related decision-making issues, even though their role is frequently overlooked by men at both the home and community levels. I’ve also learned that poor sanitation is the root cause for most of the health issues we face in our communities; thus, I beg that this festival continue to take place because it’s critical for changing people’s perceptions of sanitation.”

Community member, Dworzark
Message dissemination: This image depicts participants amplifying messages about safe sanitation in the Center Business District of Freetown, an action that drew the attention of the public to the point where pedestrians paused for a moment to quietly ask questions about the event to gain a better understanding of what was going on.

Implementing small scale strategic sanitation interventions

Abacha Street Market Area, Colbot and Dworzark informal settlements were three communities involved in our celebration. These communities experience poor sanitation practices like open defecation and dumping of non-faecal matters in toilet facilities which expose people to health hazards and make sanitation facilities malfunction respectively. In a nutshell, our sanitation tour raised awareness of the importance of World toilet Day and inspired collective action at the community level to tackle sanitation problems.

Most importantly, unveiling the unrecognized pivotal role of women as sanitation workers is fundamental for gender inclusion in the operation and management of toilets at all levels – families, communities and public authorities – and restoring dignity and hope for women in sanitation work. This was manifested by distributing certificates in recognition of women’s sanitation efforts in all cadres of society.

As of April 2023, our SLURC/FEDURP/CODOHSAPA team is implementing a small-scale strategic intervention in these three locations – Abacha Street Market Area, Colbot and Dworzark informal settlements – in Freetown focusing on gender responsive rehabilitation and construction of public and communal toilets using the Flexifund.

Our initiative recognizes that women and girls often face challenges in accessing safe and hygienic sanitation facilities, which can have negative impacts on their health, safety and dignity. The project takes a gender-inclusive approach in a way that fosters inclusion, promotes equality, and placed the concern of women and girls and the disabled at the centre of project intervention. It promotes meaningful and inclusive participation of women in the planning, design, and sitting of facilities to ensure ease of access and use; as well as women’s leadership in the management, operation and maintenance of these services, and sensitize man to the importance of gender-related issues. Currently, we are establishing a men and women toilet management committee to address gender concerns related to sanitation and ensure that toilet facilities are managed effectively and equitably.

Do not hesitate to contact us to get in touch to know more about our work.

Published by OVERDUE