A/HRC/6/3 page 10 requirements to provide safe drinking water and sanitation facilities for both sexes in educational institutions.26 The Special Rapporteur on the right to education followed a similar approach, highlighting the problem of schools lacking adequate sanitation facilities and water supply and the fact that this absence represents a genuine impediment to the right to education.27 11. Access to safe drinking water and sanitation can also create equality concerns, notably in relation to women, as limited access tends to disproportionately affect their health, physical and psychological integrity, privacy and access to education. The time burden of collecting and carrying water, which often falls on women and girls, is one explanation for the very large gender gaps in school attendance in many countries, while girls also commonly miss out disproportionately on an education if school sanitation facilities are inadequate. When girls and women have to walk to a place distant from their home for excreta disposal or water collection, they are also vulnerable to harassment and assault. Under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), States parties have the obligation to address all forms of discrimination against women, including the elimination of the causes and consequences of their de facto or substantive inequality. 12. A certain number of humanitarian and environmental treaties also entail specific provisions related to access to safe drinking water and sanitation. The Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols outline the fundamental importance of access to safe drinking water and sanitation for health and survival in situations of international and non-international armed conflicts. Under the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Protocol on Water and Health to the 1992 Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes (UNECE Protocol), States parties have the obligation to take appropriate measures to provide access to drinking water and sanitation and to protect water resources used as sources of drinking water from pollution.28 II. SCOPE AND CONTENT OF HUMAN RIGHTS OBLIGATIONS A. The meaning and scope of safe drinking water 1. Sufficient quantity 13. The mandate entrusted to OHCHR by the Human Rights Council limits the type of issues the study can consider to safe drinking water and sanitation. The term “safe drinking water” covers a limited amount of water needed - along with sanitation requirements - to provide for personal and domestic uses, which comprise water for drinking, washing clothes, food preparation and for personal and household hygiene. These personal and domestic uses represent 26 CESCR general comment No. 13 (1999) on the right to education (art. 13), para. 43. 27 See for instance E/CN.4/1999/49, para. 67. 28 Articles 1, 4, para. 2 (a) and (b) and 6, para. 1 (a) and (b) available at: http://www.unece.org/ env/water/text/text_protocol.htm.