Zip up! Pee in open is ‘stripping’

Relieving oneself in public places is equivalent to stripping in public and should be made a punishable offence, a Hyderabad-based NGO said in petitions submitted to the National Women’s Commission and the Andhra Pradesh State Human Rights Commission.

Ms Kanthi Kanan, founder of the Right to Walk Foundation that filed the petition, further stated that urinating in public places — footpaths, near bus stands and even main roads — is not only a public nuisance, it also causes embarrassment and humiliation to women.

“Women have to turn their heads the other way or cover their faces with their sari pallus or chunnis to avoid embarrassment...The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation has failed to check the menace,” Ms Kannan told this correspondent. Her petition to the human rights commission highlights a citizen’s right to walk unhindered on a clean footpath.

The failure of the GHMC to address the problem constitutes a violation of a citizen’s fundamental rights to education, work, an adequate standard of living, and freedom of movement and residence, she said.

The president of the Progressive Organisation of Women, Ms V. Sandhya, said that the onus is put on women to try and get past a man who is openly urinating in public. “A law needs to be brought with stringent punishment to put an end to the anti-social act,” she said.

The GHMC commissioner, Dr Sameer Sharma, says fining people “did not work” so “now we are identifying all roads where public toilets and urinals must be constructed.