School toilets of shame
DIGNITY OF TOWNSHIP PUPILS VIOLATED DAILY AS THEY USE FILTHY FACILITIES
THE toilets are so filthy that she uses a piece of toilet paper to hold the door handle.
She then covers the toilet seat with a roll of toilet paper and squats over it while using another piece of toilet paper to balance herself against walls smeared with faeces and blood.
This Grade 8 pupil from Ivory Park High School is one of many Gauteng pupils who are forced to use blocked, smelly and flooded toilets in their schools daily.
A three-week investigation by Sowetan, which included an inspection of toilets at 25 schools in different townships, revealed the shocking mess pupils face daily.
“I hate using these toilets. I use toilet paper to open the door and even when inside the cubicle I don ’ t sit but squat.
‘ I also use the toilet paper to balance myself against the walls,” said the pupil.
The townships we visited were Katlehong, Vosloorus, Soweto, Diepsloot, Ivory Park, Orange Farm, Kagiso, Bekkersdal and Randfontein.
Pupils are forced to carefully negotiate floors littered with bloodied sanitary pads and puddles of stale urine and faeces.
Sowetan witnessed pupils going into toilets covering their noses with their hands and tiptoeing to avoid stepping into putrid water.
At SG Mafaesa Secondary, in Kagiso near Mogale City, the urinals were blocked and overflowing. Pupils were standing on blocks of wood and relieving themselves on the floor a few metres from the urinal.
Such dire conditions continue to exist despite a 19-year-old policy emphasising the importance of school sanitation.
The National Sanitation Policy states: “All schools should have hygienic, attractive, appropriate toilets and hand-washing facilities.”
Almost all the schools visited lacked soap, toilet paper, sanitary bins and working taps.
At Diepsloot Primary School a Grade 2 pupil had to defecate and get dressed without using toilet paper to wipe herself. She also could not wash her hands.
The policy document also states that schools are responsible for keeping toilets clean by, for instance, employing caretakers.
But in most schools we visited pupils reported that the toilets were hardly cleaned.
At Mandisa Shiceka Secondary School in Kagiso pupils formed a long queue outside in a bid to avoid another cubicle where a bloodied sanitary pad had been thrown on the floor. The sour smell of vomit on the floors of the girls toilets at Katlehong Sec- ondary made for a gruesome sight.
Chatty girls in grey uniform entered the toilets checking each cubicle in an effort to find a cleaner one. But all the cubicles looked in a bad condition.
“Those toilets look like you can catch a virus just by using them. It ’ s so humiliating, especially for us girls to have to sit on them, so we just squat,” said a Grade 12 pupil.
At Aha-Thuto Secondary School in Orange Farm the toilets were so dirty that security guards working at the gate advised the Sowetan reporter not to use them.
A teacher at Lavela High School in Soweto admitted their toilets are in a shameful state. The teacher said they had stopped the cleaners from working in the toilets.
“We thought it was unfair for the cleaning ladies to be subjected to the mess. So when we find boys smoking in the toilets, we make them clean the toilets as punishment,” said the teacher.
At Simunye Secondary School in Bekkersdal on the West Rand, the putrid smell of urine is evident metres away from the prefab toilets.
There were no doors in any of the cubicles, offering no privacy.
The basic education department ’ s standards stipulate that all schools must have toilets that provide privacy and security.
A pupil from Katlehong Secondary said they wished their toilets were like those “model toilets ” used by the teachers.
It is unfair for cleaning ladies to be subjected to the mess