Public toilets for women.

WHEN general elections loom, the one issue that all political parties raise to win over potential voters is public infrastructure. Plans for building new roads and flyovers (often unnecessarily), and improving existing ones, become part of their largely unfulfilled manifestos. They also talk of education, employment, health and public transport. But in all this, the missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle are public washrooms. As per a 2015 Unicef estimate, 41 million Pakistanis do not have access to a toilet. The absence of public toilets limits the possibility of maintaining a land-use plan, worsens public health and restricts access to education, employment and recreation, especially for women.

Women in Karachi maintain that one reason why they frequent new malls in the city is because they contain clean, well-lit toilet facilities. Understanding the necessity for public toilets, the Sindh government decreed in 2012 that the private sector build public toilets with every petrol pump. This was implemented, but today, they have no water, no lights and are unclean. Gen Zia's ban on public urinals about four decades ago had also exacerbated the problem because in the absence of public toilets, cisgender men resorted to urinating in the open - which put children at risk of stunting. Women have been the worst sufferers as unlike men, they cannot even relieve themselves in the open due to sociocultural and biological factors.

When it comes to biology, it is no secret that most women typically menstruate for four decades. In a culture where menstrual products are kept hidden from the public eye, it is unsurprising that the need for period-friendly - and, thus, women-friendly - public facilities is brushed under the rug. This probably does not cross the minds of our policymakers, given that the bulk of them are cisgender men who have never had to face the physical and emotional pain of menstruating.

Then come sociocultural factors, which are intertwined with biological considerations. There is evidence to show that conversations about urination facilities are taboo in conservative societies like ours; women are discouraged from drinking water or eating adequately at their office - for as long as they are outside their home - just so they don't have to undergo the discomfort of locating and using a public washroom.

Pakistan is among the 10 worst countries for access to toilets.

Women-specific washrooms (rarely found in public spaces) tend to be...