NGO Harps On Water, Sanitation

The Women Environmental Programme (WEP), a non-governmental organisation, has declared that water and sanitation are essential to women’s dignity and health.

Executive Director of WEP, Mrs Priscillia Achakpa told our correspondent on Tuesday in Abuja that water was important in all spheres of human activity, especially in the aspect of development.

“Water is very strategic in all strata of life, whether in human activities, whether in development and in all sectors, you cannot overlook the issue of water.

“I look at the issue of water as human right concern and looking at the dignity of woman, sanitation is very Key.

“When you are talking about issue of dignity, it comes with the person; a man can stand there and open his trouser and ‘pee’, but a woman cannot because of our own biological build up.’’

Achakpa added that sanitation and water were very vital to human health and that both were inter-related.

“Sanitation is very important to human health and the two go together; there is no way you talk about the issues of water that you will not talk about hygiene and sanitation.’’

She commended the Federal Government for focusing on the issues of sanitation as it embarked on various sensitisation programmes and community-led total sanitation.

The director also called on government to give sanitation visibility in the nation’s constitution as it affected not just women, but the youth, the disabled and the aged of the society.