Silent vigil highlights silent killer

A woman lights a candle in Delhi.

Credit: FAN South Asia

17 November 2008

WaterAid joined grassroots organisations from Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan in a silent candlelit vigil in Delhi, India, this weekend.

Watch the vigil on video 

The vigil commemorated the deaths of one million children killed by diarrhoeal diseases in South Asia in the last two years. It coincided with the South Asia Conference on Sanitation (SACOSAN), a biennial ministerial level conference taking place this week in the city.

"There is a sanitation crisis in South Asia. There is human suffering on an unprecedented scale. Business as usual by our governments is not an option," said Joe Madiath of Gram Vikas, an Indian community organisation. On the eve of the conference, Madiath was in Delhi to deliver a declaration drawn up by representatives from hundreds of South Asian grassroots organisations working to improve sanitation.

South Asian governments, despite setting targets for universal access, will not meet the 2015 Millennium Development Goal (MDG) sanitation target until 2043 – 28 years too late. In South Asia one billion people live without adequate sanitation and 778 million of those people practise open defecation. Government inaction is having devastating consequences for the region’s poorest people.

A candelit vigin in Delhi ahead of the 2008 SACOSAN.

Credit: FAN South Asia

WaterAid fully endorses the call to action which demands that governments in the region reaffirm and honour their previous commitments. These include working on the principle that you get what you measure, meaning that sanitation programmes should be designed to ensure the practise of good hygiene and the eradication of open defecation. We also strongly support the demand for governments to recognise and act upon the fact that sanitation and water are basic human rights.

Oliver Cumming, WaterAid's Sanitation Policy Officer, said: "This region is facing nothing less than a sanitation crisis. All eyes now rest on the governments of South Asia as they come together this week. Now is the time for urgent and immediate action, otherwise we'll be meeting in 2010 and talking about another million children killed from entirely preventable diseases."

Tom Burgess, WaterAid's Country Programme Officer for Asia said: "We made it a silent vigil as the sanitation crisis is a silent killer. We hope that this will raise awareness of the desperate need that millions of people have for something as basic as a toilet."

Watch the vigil on video

For further information please contact WaterAid's Tom Burgess, TomBurgess@wateraid.org, +44 7500 882 341

Read Tom Burgess' blog from the SACOSAN conference 

Notes to Editor:

WaterAid enables the world's poorest people to gain access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene education. Our vision is of a world where everyone has access to these basic human rights which underpin health, education and livelihoods forming the first, essential step in overcoming poverty.

The two day meeting was led by Freshwater Action Network South Asia and supported by WaterAid and Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council.

Why is sanitation important?

• Economics: Evidence suggests for every $1 invested, $9 is returned in increased productivity
• Health: People earn less and waste more on medicine if they or their family are sick from diarrhoeal disease
• Education: Girls are highly likely to stay away when there are no separate facilities, and children cannot study while sick from diarrhoeal disease
• Dignity: Poor sanitation particularly affects women and girls, who also risk indignity and attack. Furthermore, there are thousands of people make a living by removing faeces from other people's latrines and carrying it away in baskets on their heads