Its early morning and local commuters are queuing up for tickets at the Kirti Nagar railway station in the Indian capital, Delhi. Along the tracks, another crowd is gathering – each person on his own, separated by a modest distance. They are among the 48% of Indians who do not have access to proper sanitation. Coming from a slum close-by, they squat among the few trees and bushes along the railway tracks and defecate in the open. To many, this is a daily morning ritual despite the hazards of contracting diseases such as diarrhoea and hepatitis. It can be even more hazardous for women since each time a woman uses the outdoors to relieve herself, she faces a danger of sexual assault. Recently two teenage girls from the state of Uttar Pradesh were gang-raped and found hanging from a tree after they left their village home to go to the toilet. Their house, like hundreds of millions of others in the country, did not have any facilities.

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