The environmental department of the Paynesville City Corporation (PCC) is being urged to vigorously shutdown unhygienic ‘public toilets’ run by individuals in the city.
Highlighting risks posed to women who use the public toilets, Mrs. Caroline Weeks Thomas, President of the organization, explains that most women visiting the commercial district of Paynesville have informed her about the unhealthy conditions of these public toilets and how they are a threat to women.
During a one-day cleaning up campaign held under the theme: “Clean Environment, Healthy Community”, Mrs. Thomas, said after carefully cataloging the women’s situation report, her organization also visited some of the public toilets and observed that there is an urgent need for the PCC to move in to arrest the situation by shutting them down.
She informs the community women that most of the so-called public toilets that collect money from ordinary Liberians lack the basic things needed to enhance their operations.
She names the lack of clean environment, safe water, sanitary materials for workers, and clean source of water for the facilities and soap for people to wash their hands after using the bathroom.
She stresses the importance of women engagement in sharing environmental information to their colleagues, especially in market areas to be aware and take positive steps to reduce the level of women contracting diseases.
The PCC, she notes, must act now by increasing its surveillance on the operations of public toilets, noting that they should have all the necessary materials to fight any outbreak of disease caused by the unfriendly environments in which they exist.
Also speaking during the exercise, an elderly woman, Kona Harris expressed gratitude to Mrs. Weeks-Thomas and her colleagues for the environmental measures they are taking in several parts of Paynesville, aimed at educating women on the best way of stay save from contracting disease.
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She appeals to health partners to provide some level of assistance to the women environmental organization to strengthen its capacity to effectively implement health educations and measures for women in overcrowded environments.
At least 350 women from various communities in Soul Clinic Community participated in the clean-up campaign which is promised to be a monthly events.
The peanut warehouse, dogs market, cold storage market and the Pipeline Market parking station public toilets were among few identified by the women environmental organization.
By Emmanuel Mondaye–Edited by Winston W. Parley
