Throughout my global travels I have always been keen to see toilets in some of the poorer communities I visited. Many I saw cost money to use and the sanitation was not up to healthy standards. Some toilets were overflowing with refuse. Others posed safety risks for women and girls who needed to use the toilet at night. Today on this World Toilet Day we are reminded of the 3.4 billion people who still do not have access to safe toilets. Toilets are a human right.

Key Facts:

• 354 million people still practice open defecation, increasing the risk of disease and
  harm, especially for women and girls. (WHO/UNICEF, 2025)
• Only 58% of the global population use a safely managed sanitation service — which
  means an improved toilet that is not shared, and has excreta safely disposed of in
  situ or transported and treated offsite. (WHO/UNICEF, 2025)
• At the current rates of progress, 3 billion people will still be living without safe toilets in 2030. (WHO/UNICEF, 2023)
• Globally, to achieve SDG target 6.2 –sanitation for all by 2030 – will require a six-fold increase, on average, in the rate of progress on sanitation. In low-income countries, rates need to increase 13-fold for basic sanitation, and 21-fold for safely managed sanitation. (WHO/UNICEF, 2023)

According to UN Water, in a changing world, one thing is constant: we’ll always need the toilet. No matter what liesahead, we will always rely on sanitation to protect us from diseases and keep our environment clean. Today, billions of people still live without a safe toilet — with the poorest, especially women and girls, worst affected.

Inadequate sanitation lets human waste and wastewater contaminate the environment,
especially in densely populated areas. Children are particularly vulnerable to diseases,
such as cholera, which are spread by exposure to untreated waste.

In sum, “as time goes by, the pressure on sanitation is only increasing. Across the world, aging infrastructure is failing. Investment hasn’t kept pace with demand. And climate change is reshaping our world — with glaciers melting, weather worsening, and sea levels rising”, the UN says.

How to Help

Visit the World Toilet Day website: Explore the theme, get involved, and read stories from around the world at www.worldtoiletday.org.