Hong Kong doesn’t have enough public toilets for women, Audit Commission report finds
- According to government guidelines, for every one public toilet compartment for men, there should be two for women
- Other failings by the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department include delays in fixing minor breakdowns and insufficient facilities at tourist hotspots
Women have to stand in line longer to access a public toilet partly because they may take longer, but also because there are simply not enough loos and sanitary facilities in Hong Kong for women, according to a new report by the Audit Commission.
The report, released on Wednesday, detailed a range of areas in which the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD) – which managed 798 public toilets with flushing systems as of June this year – had not met government guidelines.
This included failing to ensure that for every one public toilet compartment for men, there should be two for women. The commission’s assessment of 421 public toilets found the ratio to be one to 1.3 instead.
“The department should take measures to meet the male-to-female toilet compartment ratio as far as practicable,” the commission recommended in its 95-page report.
The commission found that of the 23 public toilets built in the last three years, 16 did not have adequate sanitary fitments for women – something which the FEHD said was due to “site constraints for expansion”.
But in the commission’s view, the FEHD should have consulted the Architectural Services Department in planning for toilet facilities.