A/HRC/42/47 IV. Complying with the human rights to water and sanitation in public spaces 35. In order for States to realize their human rights obligations to ensure water and sanitation in public spaces, they must provide such services in line with the normative content of the rights. Although the human rights to water and sanitation do not prescribe fixed standards, understanding that the enjoyment of those rights is fundamentally contextual, they provide a framework that can support States and the international agencies in establishing more prescriptive levels of service. Similarly to the definition in the WHO/UNICEF joint monitoring programme for access to water, sanitation and hygiene at the household level, in schools and in health facilities, the normative content of the rights to water and sanitation, developed in the following sections, may provide a reference for the definition of different levels of service in public spaces, including the level supposed to comply with the expectations set out in the Sustainable Development Goals. The further development of those standards can be a platform for monitoring access to facilities in public spaces and guide States, and in particular local governments, to implement services that meet human rights requirements, after identifying the territories in the specific city or town where those services are needed. A. Availability 36. In order for the provision of water and sanitation in public spaces to meet the requirement that services must be available, States are obliged to provide a supply of water to such places that is both continuous and sufficient for personal needs, such as for personal sanitation and drinking. In situations where public spaces are utilized as dwellings, for instance by people who are homeless, States are also obliged to ensure a level of access that is adequate to fulfil domestic needs, including for cleaning property and clothes and preparing food.21 37. A lack of continuous access to safe water for drinking and personal hygiene in public spaces generates many impacts, such as the risk of dehydration, and exacerbates the effects of exposure faced by people who live and work in those places. 22 As was noted in the Special Rapporteur’s communication related to Cork, Ireland, the lack of availability of services in public spaces, such as drinking fountains or personal hygiene stations, forced people who were homeless to rely on requesting access to those basic services from private citizens or businesses. However, they were often refused access, which proved demeaning for them (see A/HRC/31/79, IRL 2/2015). 38. Where toilets are not available in public spaces, people who live and work there commonly have to make a choice between waiting for long periods without urinating or defecating, or resort to open defecation or urination to satisfy their vital needs. In Ecuador, a lack of public toilet facilities available for street vendors, who often suffered from diarrhoea owing to the unsanitary conditions on the street or in their own households, led them to avoid using the toilet for many hours. This caused them eventually to suffer from long-term gastric conditions.23 39. In Dhaka, the authorities have been working towards improving the city’s existing public toilets, while continuing to increase availability. As of 2011, Dhaka only had 47 21 22 23 10 See Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, general comment No. 15 (2002) on the right to water, para. 12 (a). Christine DeMyers, Chloe Warpinski, and Amber Wutich, “Urban water insecurity: a case study of homelessness in Phoenix, Arizona”, Environmental Justice, vol. 10, No. 3 (2017); Bigboy Ngwenya and others, “Heat stress and adaptation strategies of outdoors workers in the City of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe”, Journal of Community Medicine and Public Healthcare, vol. 5, No. 1 (2018). Sergio Ferragut and Georgina M. Gómez, “From the street to the store: the formalization of street vendors in Quito, Ecuador” in Securing Livelihoods: Informal Economy Practices and Institutions, Isabelle Hillenkamp, Frédéric Lapeyre and Andreia Lemaître, eds. (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2013).