Stink record: Indians lead in defecating in open

PUBLIC INCONVENIENCE: Around 1.2 bn people worldwide have no access to toilets.

ibnlive.com is on mobile now. Read news, watch videos
be a Citizen Journalist. Log on to m.ibnlive.com NOW!

Related Stories

Top Headlines

Top Videos

Most Popular

• Mamata set to present pro-people Rail Budget 

• Didi Vs Lalu: Railway Ministers on diverse tracks 

• Let private players run tourist trains: Economic Survey 

• A Raja under scanner for 'threatening' HC judge 

• Law gives gays pride, religious leaders protest 

• Eco Survey upbeat, predicts 7 pc growth | Wishlist | Watch 

• Venus, Serena set up all-Williams final at Wimbledon 

• AI staff to strike work for two hours on Friday 

• Paradise on Earth: Costa Rica ranked happiest nation 

• Pak Taliban chief Fazlullah may be dead: report 

• Closet opened: Gay community overjoyed at HC judgement 

• Eco Survey: Worst of recession over for India 

• CNN-IBN exclusive: K G Balakrishnan on judiciary 

• A Raja under scanner for 'threatening' HC judge 

• Gay and legal: Will the harrasment of gays end? 

• 3 dead in Mysore clashes over mosque land 

• Watch: Can Union Budget 2009 save jobs? 

• CNN-IBN reality check: how good are our trains 

• Employees appeal not to tax FBT on notional benefit 

• British soldiers train in a simulated Afghan village 

• A Raja under scanner for 'threatening' HC judge 

• Paradise on Earth: Costa Rica ranked happiest nation 

• Law gives gays pride, religious leaders protest 

• Closet opened: Gay community overjoyed at HC judgement 

• Venus, Serena set up all-Williams final at Wimbledon 

• AI staff to strike work for two hours on Friday 

• Still a long way to go: Fashion designer Wendell Rodericks 

• Filmmaker claims New York script a rip-off 

• Congress MP apologises for slapping bank manager 

• Shruti Hassan, Imran Khan ready to try their Luck 

Photogallery

Find us on Facebook | Join IBNLive community

Stay ahead with G-Talk Buddy | Click now!

New Delhi: Around 1.2 billion people worldwide have no access to toilets and India tops the list of countries with the most number of people defecating in the open, at 665 million—about half its population, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Friday.

According to a report jointly conducted by WHO and UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund), the next three most offending countries are Indonesia, Ethiopia and Pakistan.

While 66 million people in Indonesia have no access to toilets, in Ethiopia it is 52 million and 50 million in Pakistan. In China, a whopping 32 million people don't have access to toilets.

In Nigeria, 29 million people use the open spaces while 18 million each in Brazil and Bangladesh do so.

Most of the 1.2 billion defecting in the open - 83 percent - are from 13 countries, especially Asia and Africa.

Both global health watch dogs have said that it's the "riskiest sanitary practice of all" in its report released on the International Year for Sanitation (2008).

Poor sanitation threatens children's survival as an environment contaminated with faeces is directly linked to diarrhoeal disease, one of the biggest killers of infants under the age of five.

"At current trends, the world will fall short of the millennium sanitation target by more than 700 million people," said Ann M. Veneman, Unicef executive director.