No public toilets at Home Affairs in Vhembe

There is no running water, the toilets are currently locked and they are not in a usable condition. These are some of the reasons given by officials to people when they ask to make use of the public toilets while seeking various services at the Vhembe district offices of Home Affairs in Limpopo. Situated in the water-starved, old Makwarela township, outside of Thohoyandou, the district offices of Home Affairs assists hundreds of clients on a daily basis, ranging from those who want to apply for an identity document for the first time, or to replace their documents, to those who want to get married.

Most days, ‘clients’ of Home Affairs spend several hours or the entire day in the long queues waiting for their turn to be assisted, while some are even forced to return home without having received any form of assistance from the officials.

But when a call of nature comes to those in the queue, they have to contain themselves as there are no accessible, public toilets. Women and girls on their periods who want to change their sanitary ware are unable to do so as two blocks of toilets, for women and men, remain locked, while the windows and doors are broken at the alternative toilets which are currently being used as a dumping site.

Six hours in the queue, with no toilet

Rachel Ramasimu from Makonde, outside of Thohoyandou, recently visited the Home Affairs offices in Makwarela. She says that she spent more than six hours in the line, waiting for her turn to be assisted, until she decided to go back home without having been assisted. “Last week, I visited the office in the hope that they will assist me in getting the new smart ID card but because I did not book online, I was told to wait in the long queue, something which I did. But many hours came and passed without us being assisted and to be honest I was really pressed and urgently needed to use the toilet, but I was told that all the toilets are not working; hence I decided to leave without having been assisted,” says Ramasimu.

‘I had to leave without
being assisted’

Ramasimu then had to ask to use the toilet at one of the nearby houses. “I nearly peed on myself, while waiting on that queue. You should have seen how I ran, looking for a place to relieve myself at the neighbouring houses; luckily a good Samaritan allowed me to use her family toilet,” she says.

She does not understand how a public office. which assists many people daily, does not have a working public toilet. “It is us women who are mostly affected by the lack of usable toilets, as men are able to just lean against the wall and urinate, but for us it is not easy as that. Just imagine if I was on my period: where was I going to change my sanitary pads? What is happening there is not fair, they must do something urgently to address the situation,” she says.

Dr Ferrial Adam is an executive manager at WaterCan. She says that water is a basic human right and the provision of proper sanitation is a basic dignity that must be afforded everyone. “If you do not have these two services in your building, then you cannot actually get the work done. Which then affects the whole circle of things, because some of these buildings or departments are important, be it home affairs or social development, as people need a lot of services from them,” says Adam. She adds that the lack of sanitation impacts not just the health of people coming to use the services offered in the building, but affects the efficiency and the efficacy of government.

‘What baffles me is that
the officials have proper,
working sanitation with
running water, within
their offices’

A security guard stationed at the Vhembe district offices of Home Affairs told Elitsha that he has been told to notify all ‘clients’ who seek the use of a toilet that the toilets are not working due to a lack of water. “Those toilets have not been working for years and nothing is ever done to address the situation and they always blame lack of water but what baffles me is that the officials have proper, working sanitation with running water, within their offices. But I am always informed to tell clients that there is no working toilet around,” he says. He is allowed to make use of the working toilets within officials’ offices, but he feels bad that hundreds of ‘clients’ who visit the offices daily are not able to use the toilet.

Gladys Mathye from Lufule village, outside of Thohoyandou, says that she visited the offices in Makwarela last week Friday. Mathye says that she also left without having been assisted after having waited for about four hours. “I was not feeling too well and I had stomach pain and felt like I was about to have a running tummy. After having waited for hours for my turn to be assisted, I asked a security where I can find the toilets and he said that they do not have any working toilets at the moment. I quickly left after he told me that, because I was afraid that I might mess up on my clothes,” says Mathye.

Several attempts to get comment from the Home Affairs district offices in Vhembe, Limpopo failed.