1GzuFGC

municipalities, for example, had ‘the unintendedeffect of identifying them as being too “dirty” toreceive education’. 256Stigma is often linked to perceptions ofuncleanliness. This affects the rights ofmenstruating women and girls, women withobstetric fistula and women living with HIV,who may face seclusion, reduced mobility andrestricted access to shared water and sanitationfacilities. Societal silence and individual shamecombine to keep women’s and girls’ waterand sanitation needs, including for menstrualhygiene, invisible.Water collection puts a major strain onwomen and girlsIn sub-Saharan Africa, only 55 per cent ofhouseholds are within 15 minutes of a water source.Women and girls are the primary water carriers fortheir families, doing the fetching in over 70 per centof households where water has to be fetched, asshown in Figure 3.13. 257 Where rural water sourcesare distant, women walk up to two hours to collectwater. Where urban water is obtained from sharedstandpipes, they may wait in line for over anhour. 258 Survey data for 25 countries in the regionindicate that women spend a combined total of16 million hours per day collecting water. 259 Casestudies from around the world show that waterrelated‘time poverty’ translates into lost incomefor women and lost schooling for girls. 260 Fetchingand carrying water also causes wear-and-tear towomen’s bodies, and high levels of mental stressmay result when water rights are insecure. 261Increasing the availability, affordability and accessibilityof water and sanitation provision is a priority forenhancing substantive equality because women aredisproportionately burdened with poor health andunpaid care and domestic work in their absence. 262Conversely, enhanced access to water has beenassociated with increases in women’s productiveactivities as well as children’s school attendance. 263A regular supply of water piped into the household is theideal but is not the reality for most women and girls inlow-income countries, especially in rural or marginalizedurban areas. A large proportion of the world’s poor relyon a ‘patchwork quilt of provision’, 264 including waterstandpipes, water kiosks and delivery agents. Thesesources count as ‘improved’ but may still require womenand girls to walk long distances or queue up for hours.It has therefore been suggested that, after 2015, one ofthe indicators for access to basic water should be thepercentage of the population using an improved sourcewith a total collection time of 30 minutes or less for around trip including queuing. 265Standpipes have also been found to charge pricesseveral times higher than those associated with anetwork connection for low-income households in Benin,Kenya, Mali, Senegal and Uganda. 266 Water resellersoften charge a much higher per unit price than publicutilities. The further away from the household, the higherthe price—even without considering opportunity coststhat arise from travelling and waiting time, particularlyfor women and girls.Regulating private sector participation in waterand sanitationInvesting in water and sanitation for women and girlsis not only a necessary step towards the fulfilmentof international human rights commitments but alsomakes good economic sense. Overall, the benefits interms of health and productivity gains exceed the costsof providing and maintaining water and sanitationservices. 267 As is the case with other public goods,however, water and sanitation are unlikely to be deliveredaffordably, equitably and at scale by markets alone. Theyare hence clear candidates for public investment.In low-income slums or other informal settlements,where initial capital investment and set-up costs arehigh and short-term returns on investment are low,the state may be the only actor willing and able tofinance the expansion of services. 268 Communitybasedapproaches—such as rainwater harvesting,treadle pumps or community-based total sanitationcampaigns—are also unlikely to go to scalewithout state support. 269 Public involvement andregulation are necessary to ensure that water andsanitation services remain affordable and reflectthe needs of marginalized groups. Even wherenetwork connections are available, hardware costsand connection and supply charges can present181