A/HRC/RES/33/10
sanitation for all, which comprises important targets relating to the human rights to safe
drinking water and sanitation as well as hygiene, and acknowledges the need for an
integrated approach to Goal 6 that reflects the interlinkages between achieving access to
safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene, while also striving to improve the quality and
safety of water, to reduce the number of people suffering from water scarcity and to ensure
attention to the needs of women and girls,
Affirming that attention to realizing the human rights to safe drinking water and
sanitation and other related human rights will advance efforts by Member States to achieve
several other Sustainable Development Goals, including those relating to adequate housing,
education, health and gender equality,
Noting the relevant commitments and initiatives promoting the human rights to safe
drinking water and sanitation made at the 2014 high-level meeting of the Sanitation and
Water for All partnership and in the Ngor Declaration on Sanitation and Hygiene, adopted
at the fourth African Conference on Sanitation and Hygiene, in 2015, the Dhaka
Declaration, adopted at the sixth South Asian Conference on Sanitation, in 2016, the Lima
Declaration, adopted at the fourth Latin American and Caribbean Conference on Sanitation,
in 2016, and the Dar es Salam road map for achieving the Ngor commitments on water
security and sanitation in Africa, adopted at the sixth Africa Water Week, in 2016,
Deeply concerned that the world missed meeting the sanitation component of
Millennium Development Goal 7 by almost 700 million people, and that more than 2.4
billion people still do not have access to improved sanitation facilities, including more than
946 million people who, as at 2015, still practise open defecation, which is one of the
clearest manifestations of poverty and extreme poverty,
Deeply concerned also that the lack of access to water and sanitation and hygiene
underlies severe human costs such as poor health and high mortality rates, and major
economic losses, and affirming that affordability, accessibility and availability, as human
rights criteria, require that the use of water, sanitation and hygiene facilities and services is
accessible at a price that is affordable to all people,
Deeply concerned further that women and girls often face particular barriers in their
access to water and sanitation, which are exacerbated in humanitarian crises, and that they
shoulder the main burden of collecting household water in many parts of the world, which
restricts their time for other activities, such as education and leisure for girls or earning a
livelihood for women,
Deeply concerned that the lack of access to adequate water and sanitation services,
including for menstrual hygiene management, especially in schools, contributes to
reinforcing the widespread stigma associated with menstruation, which negatively affects
gender equality and women’s and girls’ enjoyment of human rights, including the right to
education and the right to health,
Deeply concerned also that women and girls are particularly at risk of and exposed
to attacks, sexual and gender-based violence, harassment and other threats to their safety
while collecting household water and when accessing sanitation facilities outside their
homes, or practicing open defecation,
Reaffirming the responsibility of States to ensure the respect, promotion and
protection of all human rights, which are universal, indivisible, interdependent and
interrelated and must be treated globally, in a fair and equal manner, on the same footing
and with the same emphasis,
Recalling the understanding by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights and the Special Rapporteur on the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation
that the rights to safe drinking water and sanitation are closely related, but have features
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