8th March is celebrated as International Women’s Day worldwide. On this International Women’s Day, let’s throw some light on the importance of clean water for women’s health and safety. Easy access to clean drinking water, sanitation and hygiene is the key element of life. Life without these is a life of poor health, nutrition, education, and employment. In India, there are many rural and urban areas where the citizens remain deprived of access to clean water to meet daily needs. Due to this, the entire mankind suffers, and women the most. An improper water distribution or simply lack of water has many negative effects on women’s overall health condition because she has more cultural and biological needs than men with respect to water usage.

Due to unavailability of functioning toilets, many women in rural areas of India still travel far to urinate and defecate. This often puts them at risk for infections, diseases, sexual harassment, and other physical and emotional violence. Women spend a lot of time in bringing water home from far off regions to meet their daily water needs. This might result in missing school, work and playtime for many. A menstruating woman when lack a safe, clean and private toilet has to suffer a lot while maintaining the hygiene that is most required during this period. A lack of menstrual hygiene products might put them on the risk of infection that can be dangerous. For a pregnant woman, a lack of access to clean water can become a matter of life and death. A lack of water for washing during these days can spread infections that are harmful to both the mother and child.

This problem does not remain restricted to rural areas only but urban cities also do not remain unaffected. In urban cities, although the condition of water supply is better, the quality of water still remains questionable. Water storage tanks play a very important role here. It is essential to clean our domestic and commercial water storage tanks in India to avoid any water contamination on a regular interval.

Avoid any water wastage as it is scarce and not free anymore. Let the whole nation get a fair amount of water supply that they deserve to survive. Let’s make WASH(water, sanitation, and hygiene) for women stronger this Women’s Day.