Women for Development, an NGO, on Wednesday says the lack of water has greater impact on women and girls, thereby affecting their contributions to national development.
The group’s Spokesperson, Mrs. Abigail Emenike, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja that the lack of water also challenged women’s quest to actualise their potential in their chosen careers.
According to her, Nigeria should begin to put policies in place to ensure that access to water in rural and urban areas are scaled up to lessen the hardships being encountered by females.
Emenike said increasing access to water for women and girls had greater advantage, saying access to water would give females healthy lives, reduce infant deaths and improve living conditions.
She added that although many water-borne sicknesses were treatable and preventable, they were, however, leading causes of death in under-five children globally.
She noted that the Joint Monitoring Programme of WHO and UNICEF had reported that no fewer than 2.2 million people die annually from diarrhea-related diseases globally.
Emenike said 50 per cent of hospitalisations of this category of people were as a result of water-related diseases.
“Infants and children are especially susceptible to water-borne diseases because of their young immune systems, thereby increasing infant mortality rates in many parts of Nigeria.
“Water scarcity, therefore, has a big impact on hygiene.”
The organisation’s spokesperson said the lack of water also impacts on individual’s contribution to the nation’s productivity, stressing that economic resources were sapped by the cost of medicine to treat diseases.
She explained that 12 per cent of the health budget of Sub-Saharan countries, Nigeria inclusive, was used to treat diarrhea due to consumption of unsafe water and poor hygiene practices.
Emenike, who specifically emphasised the impact of the lack of water on girls, said they trek long distances to get water sources, thereby leaving only little time to pursue their education.
She said “it is saddening to note that most schools’ toilets lack water and separate toilets for girls to manage their menstrual hygiene.”
“It’s been recorded that a large number of school girls stay away from school when they are on their monthly period.
“Often, school buildings lack gendered toilet facilities, meaning menstruating girls face another challenge to have to deal with their periods in shared, unsanitary toilets or miss school for a few days every month.
‘‘This is capable of fueling lower attendance rate at school, which can vastly affect their prospects for the future.”
She, therefore, called for improved hygiene and campaigns in health centres and access to water facilities.
She asserted that new mothers needed safe and sterile conditions to properly take care for their babies.
“This is because babies born in unhygienic conditions are six times more likely to die in the first few weeks of their life than those born in clean environments.
‘‘Nigeria needs to act now so as to avoid deaths and illnesses from preventable sources.”
NAN reports that Women For Development has been in the forefront of advocacy and awareness creation toward increasing access to water and sanitation.
