40% of poll respondents consider their school toilets are horrible

About 40% of the students who took part in a poll organized by Amnesty International Moldova said their school toilets are horrible. 38% said they go to the school toilet only when they can no longer endure or have an emergency, while almost 3% said they never go to the school toilet, IPN reports.

When asked why they don’t use the school toilet, the students responded: there is no toilet paper there (64%), the toilet smells unpleasantly (51%), the toilet is dirty (39%), it is cold in the toilet (34%), there is no soap there (31%), the toilet is of open type and does not ensure safety and intimacy (29%), there are long rows at the toilet (25%), the toilet is too far from the classroom/school (7%).

The poll showed the internal toilets are rather for a “tick” and there are practically no toilets intended for children with special needs. Each fourth child said there are situations when the access to the toilet inside the school is permitted only on the occasion of special events, such as inspections and open lessons. Of the 343 respondents, 30% said the internal school toilet is open during the cold period of the year only or is not open at all. 87% of the toilets haven’t been adjusted for children with special needs. 74% of the students said the teachers have a separate toilet to each the students do not have access. The access to drinking water in the school is difficult for 6% of the respondents, while 43% of the children said they bring drinking water from home.

Amnesty International Moldova considers the situation concerning school toilets in Moldova is worrisome and requires the urgent intervention of the central authorities, such as Parliament and the Government. “Even if we are in 2021, we have hundreds of schools with toilets outside and with noncompliant hygiene. The poll results show the students have limited access to hygienic and sanitary conditions in schools, which is a danger to their health, dignity and emotional state and this is a serious violation of the children’s right to a safe learning environment, especially in times of a pandemic,” runs the press release.

Amnesty International Moldova demands to solve the problem of school toilets that are situated outside or are noncompliant by designing a national program to set up sanitary facilities inside schools, by allocating state budget funds.

As many as 343 students of different education institutions were able to fill out a questionnaire anonymously and to state their opinion about the hygienic and sanitary conditions in schools. 62% of the respondents are from urban areas.

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