Woman granted divorce over lack of home toilet after judge rules it is 'torture'
An Indian woman has been granted a divorce after a judge ruled it was torture for her not to have a home toilet.
A family court in Bhilwara, in the Indian state of Rajasthan, said the absence of a toilet amounted to “cruelty” against the 24-year-old woman and allowed the marriage to be dissolved on Friday, according to The Times of India.
Under Indian law, divorce is only allowed in limited circumstances such as domestic violence.
The couple were married in 2011, and the woman filed for divorce in 2015 saying she had repeatedly asked her husband to build a toilet or bathroom in the home, but he didn’t.
She was forced to defecate in open fields at dusk, which she said undermined her dignity.
But her husband said his wife’s demands for a toilet were unusual, because most women in his village defecate in the open.
He alleged the woman’s family never raised toilet construction as an issue at the time of marriage.
Justice Rajendra Kumar Sharma said women in villages often endured physical pain waiting until darkness to relieve themselves outdoors.
The woman’s lawyer Rajesh Sharma told AFP that the judge said forced open defecation was a form of torture. In India, divorces are only allowed in certain cases - such as marriages where there is proven domestic violence or cruelty.
The judge ruled the lack of a toilet was “physical cruelty”.
"We spend money on buying tobacco, liquor and mobile phones, but are unwilling to construct toilets to protect the dignity of our family,” the judge said.
“In villages, women have to wait until sunset to answer nature's call. This is not only physical cruelty but also outraging the modesty of a woman.”
It is not the first time a marriage has been called off over a toilet.
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Last year a woman refused to tie the knot in the state of Uttar Pradesh after her fiance refused to build a toilet for the couple.
In June another woman refused to return to the home of her in-laws until they constructed a toilet.
The case comes as the Indian government pushes to stop its people from defecating outside with the aim to provide every household with a toilet by 2019.
Unicef estimates around half the population of India, or 564 million people, do not use toilets leading to 100,000 tonnes of faeces being left outside every day – enough to fill a football stadium.
Some 70 per cent of Indian households do not have toilets, although 90 percent have access to mobile phones.
