An Empirical Analysis of Access to Sanitation Facilities in Schools: A Case Study of Thar Desert in Pakistan

Abstract

Thar Desert is widely known as most water scare region of Pakistan. It is a district having fragile health, food insecurity and poor sanitation status. Whereas School sanitation is tragically deprived of proper latrines, hygiene practices, access to safe drinking water and solid waste management mechanism. Poor sanitation practices, open defecation and ground water consumption, have emanated multifarious health hazards, coercing school children to stay at homes. Furthermore, adolescent girls are denied of menstrual hygiene management, for it being age-old taboo. Poor sanitation has scuttled girls’ education, for the hardships they face during menstruation, at schools. It is worth to garner a few incredible interventions undertaken by local and international NGOs as school sanitation activities, child to child approach to promote hygiene, awareness on menstrual hygiene management, rainwater harvesting structures and WASH advocacy campaigns. The paper concludes that such these interventions need promulgation and replication in entire district.