Giving Compass' Take:

• Zehra Shabbir writes about women who felt the real impacts of life without access to a toilet or safe water and how small transformative loans can be the answer. 

• How can philanthropists support access to clean sanitation? 

• Here's an article on addressing the global sanitation crisis through toilets. 

Women who lack access to life’s basics know exactly what they need. And they’re getting it.

As different as everyone’s life may be, there are a few basic human functions that we all share. Like staying hydrated and going to the bathroom.  As un-glamorous as these acts might be, safe drinking water and a private bathroom are universal needs and, therefore, are universal rights.

But it’s not surprising to hear that these universal rights don’t extend equally to everyone – or that women must often work harder to be granted these rights. One in nine people globally lack access safe water, and one in three people around the world have to go to the bathroom, as it were, without a bathroom. A large portion of these millions are female.

The reality:
If you have always lived with a sink and a toilet in your house, it may not be easy to imagine what this level of inequality is like, but it is something like this: your toilet is permanently out of order, your sink is in another neighborhood 3.7 miles away and you don’t have a car. This is the average distance a woman or girl living in Africa or Asia will walk today to collect water.

Read the full article about sanitation for women by Zehra Shabbir at Skoll.