Girl-friendly toilets for schoolgirls : helping adolescent girls

In the life time of a women, she will have a total of around 3,000 days of menstruation. For her basic schooling period which range from Grade 4 to 10 the number of such days is 450. There is a growing awareness of special needs of young women in the school. At school, girls are faced with poor facilities – inadequate water for washing, lack of soap, no privacy and non-functioning or insufficient toilets. This reduces school attendance. Adolescent girls are often absent from school due, in part, to inadequate water and sanitation facilities. It is important to realize that one out of two 13 year old girls will probably be menstruating. One in eight girls begins to menstruate (menarche) when she is 11 years or younger.
At all times, adolescent girls need facilities that provide privacy and security to avoid risk of harassment. The designs and services should ensure that all school girls have (1) separate latrines from boys, (2) water for washing, and (3) free or subsidized sanitary napkins. The development organization Plan International (Ghana) being acutely aware of this, took up the challenge and decided to develop a model ‘girl-friendly latrine’. [authors abstract]