A lack of proper school toilets threatens the health, education and safety of at least 620 million children around the world, the charity WaterAid said in a new study published on Friday.
Children at one in three schools lack access to proper toilets, putting them at risk of diarrhea and other infections and forcing some to miss lessons altogether, according to the study, based on data from 101 countries.
Guinea-Bissau in West Africa has the worst school toilets while Ethiopian children fare worst at home, with 93 percent of homes lacking a decent toilet according to the report, released ahead of World Toilet Day on Monday.
"The message here is that water and sanitation affect everything," WaterAid spokeswoman Anna France-Williams told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
"If there's no toilet in schools, children will miss lessons and it will have an impact on their growing up."
A lack of proper sanitation puts millions of children around the world in danger of diarrhea, which kills 289,000 under-fives a year, WaterAid said.
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