Squatter's loo

Mumbai households in a poor urban settlement lacking sanitation demonstrate a sense of agency in constructing makeshift or unimproved toilets. While they are hidden from view while going about their daily ablutions the waste is not - dropping from the makeshift hole in the floor of the toilet enclosure to the canal banks below. Access to improved sanitation (or in this case makeshift sanitation) has clear gender and age dimensions: women and children are exposed to a range of vulnerabilities to do with personal safety when sanitation is absent. In 2010, about 20% of those living in urban areas in poorer countries had to make do with unimproved sanitation (as this photograph shows) whereas 7 per cent had not even this option and were forced to resort to open defecation.