Six married women return to parents due to lack of toilet at in-laws home

Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh: Six newly wed women have returned to their parents as the house of their in-laws' in Kushinagar district of Uttar Pradesh did not have toilet.

The women left their in-laws' houses in Khesiya village in the past two months, claimed a local social worker Asha Parveen.

Neelam, Kalawati, Shakina, Niranjan, Gudiya and Sita, registered their protest against their husband and in-laws after finding that there were no toilet in their houses, said Parveen, adding that they are adamant not to go back until toilets are built there.

However, there was no official information about the incident.

Founder of Sulabh International, an NGO working in the field of sanitation, Bindeshwar Pathak, said toilets will be constructed in the houses of the in-laws of all these six women.

Pathak termed the step taken by the women as bold and extraordinary.

"Such kind of rising incidents clearly show the changing mindset of girls over toilets. Now everybody realises the importance of toilets," he said.

Toilets will be constructed by Sulabh International, free of cost, without any delay so that the women can return to their in-laws' place soon, he said.

"They will also be honoured for their bold stand," Pathak said.

"The problem is especially acute in rural areas where women suffer the most due to lack of toilets. They have to wait for darkness for the sake of privacy before attending to the call of nature. They have to leave before sunrise or wait for the sun to go down," he said.

Pathak said a UN study in 2010 found that more people in India have access to mobile phone than toilet.

He hoped that as Prime Minister Narendra Modi has urged MPs and the corporate sector to help build separate toilets for girls in schools, India will soon become a country free of open defecation.