The Gender Bias No One Talks About

A ‘Right To Pee’ campaign in Mumbai is trying to address the dearth of public toilets for women

In Mumbai, there are an estimated 5,993 public toilets, apart from 2,466 urinals for men. In comparison, women have access to only 3,536 public toilets. And while men are only charged money for using the toilet, and not the urinal, on the premise that water is not used for the latter, women are always charged money despite regulations to the contrary.

A group of 33 NGOs in Mumbai have joined hands under the campaign ‘Right To Pee’ (RTP) to force the city’s municipal body, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), to redress the bias. Although the group was formed in 2011, apart from a cursory meeting with the BMC Commissioner, Sitaram Kunte, in September this year, the municipal body has otherwise paid little heed to the campaign.

Unable to catch the attention of the authorities, the activists began a series of protests. They recently collected around 50,000 signatures of locals supporting their campaign, and began to invite people to take photographs of ill-maintained toilets for women in the city and share them on Google Maps. During Diwali, members of the NGOs then sent pictures of badly maintained restrooms for women, along with the message ‘Ha Pee Diwali’, to the city’s municipal authorities. But unlike other occasions, this time they got a response. The activists have now been invited for a meeting on 5 November to discuss a road map to solve the issue.

Deepa Pawar, a member of the NGO Vacha, which deals with gender issues and is part of the campaign, asks: “How can you talk about progress and equality for women, and not even have the most basic thing set up for them?” The activists want the municipal body to build more toilets for women, enforce the rule that women get free use of public toilets to urinate, and to maintain and equip these restrooms with basic facilities like washbasins and latches for doors.

About The Author

Lhendup G Bhutia

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