Safer toilet project to be monitored

IN THE ONGOING battle to get rid of unsafe toilets, Section27 and the Centre for Child Law will on Friday launch an online accountability tool, to monitor progress to eradicate pit toilets in Limpopo schools.

The Michael Komape Sanitation Progress Monitor, named after the 5-year-old pupil, Michael Komape, who drowned in a pit toilet at his school in Limpopo in 2014, will be launched at the Human Rights Festival, at Constitution Hill.

As part of the festival, Section27 will also host an exhibition to commemorate the life of Michael, which will run until Saturday. The legal battle for safer toilets had been ongoing with the high court in Limpopo, who in September 2021 ordered that the Department of Education provide a list of schools with pit toilets and other inadequate sanitation.

The department also had to issue plans to eradicate these toilets, including its plans to upgrade school sanitation in the province.

In terms of the court order, the department had to report to the court and the affected parties every six months on progress made. According to the department’s plan, the first deadline for upgrading all “priority one schools” is the end of this month (March). These are schools that rely only on pit toilets and have the most pressing needs.

Section27 and the Centre for Child Law meanwhile said they are launching the accountability tool amid several horrific deaths of pupils who fall into school pit toilets. The most recent case is that of a 4-year-old whose lifeless body was discovered in a pit latrine toilet in a public school in the Eastern Cape earlier this month.

Lister Magongwa, 7, died in 2013 in Limpopo, while Oratilwe Dilwane, 5, died in 2016 in the North West Province, followed by Siyamthanda Mtunu, 6, who died in 2017.

The Michael Komape Sanitation Progress Monitor will allow the public, including pupils, parents and school communities, to track progress and hold the department accountable for meeting their deadlines.

Section27 said the provincial government’s plan to eradicate the toilets only by 2030 was unacceptable and unconstitutional.