Oratile Diloane (R), 12, and his mother Refilwe Diloane (L), 46, play in the courtyard of their house.
Schools across rural South Africa have perilous and degrading pit toilets – a heritage of the apartheid era that campaigners say symbolises inequality and government ineptitude.
More than 3 300 of the country’s 23 000 public schools still use pit latrines, according to government figures released in March.
The rudimentary toilets typically consist of a concrete slab on the ground with a drop of at least 3m.
Successive governments have promised to eradicate the scourge, with the Cyril Ramaphosa administration promising at least twice to replace open latrines in schools.
But deadlines for replacing them have come and gone, leaving young children at risk of falling in and drowning.
READ | In South Africa, pupils in more than 3 000 schools still use pit toilets
The unhygienic open toilets were “a legacy of apartheid”, said Amnesty International’s Sibusiso Khasa, who is campaigning for political action to address the problem.
Although there is no reliable data on child drownings in pit latrines, there have been multiple reports in the local media for years.
In March, a four-year-old girl was found dead in a school pit toilet in the Eastern Cape. One month later, a 20-month-old girl died in a pit toilet in a relative’s backyard in the central Free State.
Refilwe Diloane told AFP of the day her son, Oratile, once fell into a pit latrine at his school. The then-five-year-old slipped into a hole full of human waste and was rescued by a gardener using a rope.
He had “bruises and his head was swollen … and the smell of faeces [were] coming from his mouth”, Diloane said, recalling the incident in May 2016.
“He was perfectly healthy and was a very smart child,” the 46-year-old said, tears rolling down her cheeks.
The boy suffered injuries that left him severely brain-damaged, according to his mother.
He was no longer able to perform mundane tasks and struggles to string full sentences together.
Following the accident, Oratile was diagnosed with hydrocephalus, epilepsy, and autism, said Diloane at their home in Kanana Village, about 180km north-west of Johannesburg.
Oratile Diloane (L), 12, and his mother Refilwe Diloane (R), 46, are seen in the living room of their house in Kanana township, in a rural area of the North West. Luca Sola / AFP
Taking off his beanie, the 12-year-old reveals a scar on his head.
Oratile suffers from memory loss but tells his mother every day he remembers the fall.
“I fell into the toilet,” he said, looking at his mother.
He also asked why he had no friends, or he could not go to school, Diloane said.
‘Lack of political will‘
The pit toilets at his primary school where the accident happened have since been replaced. But the wider picture of introducing flushing toilets where they are still sorely needed remains bleak.
South Africa was the world’s most unequal country, according to the World Bank, despite the end of apartheid in 1994.
The use of pit toilets in Africa’s most industrialised economy is a stark reminder of the problem.
Privately run schools offer world-class facilities, score high pass rates, and cost three times more than state-run schools.
But in most rural areas, pit latrines remained common, campaigners said.
In 1996, the country had 9 000 schools that “had no appropriate toilets and were dependent on basic pit toilets”, according to the national Department of Basic Education.
READ | Flush forward: How one social media post led to eradication of KZN school’s pit toilets in 3 months
However, pointing to progress since the end of apartheid, Amnesty campaigner Khasa blasted the government for failing in its “obligations to protect human rights”.
The education department did not respond to AFP’s request for comment.
In 2018, when he came to power, Ramaphosa’s government said millions would be needed to eradicate open latrines from schools.
Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga then set another deadline for March 2023, which has been pushed to 2025.
The government has faced court action from affected families as well as rights and opposition groups to force it to act.
In 2019, a court ordered the government to pay R1.4 million in damages to the family of Michael Komape, a five-year-old who drowned in a toilet in 2014.
“The fact that they’ve been missing their own deadlines, it’s a huge indicator that there’s lack of political will,” said Amnesty’s Khasa.
Oratile’s plight traumatised other families in the neighbourhood.
Lebogang Lebethe said her pre-teen son was in the same class as Oratile at the time.
“We were scared for our kids,” the 48-year-old mother of four told AFP, tending to her sweet potato garden.
When “we take our kids to school, we think … they are safe there but [when this] happens, it’s devastating”, she said.