Campaigners take 'flash squat' to UK seat of power
Campaigners mark end of International Year of Sanitation outside UK Parliament
Campaigners flash-squatting outside
the UK Houses of Parliament.
Credit: Andy Aitchison
21 January 2009
It was bottoms out for End Water Poverty campaigners in the UK, as around 100 people marked the International Year of Sanitation by holding a 'flash squat' outside the Houses of Parliament.
Bemused onlookers watched as campaigners arrived en masse by the River Thames as Big Ben struck 9.00am, armed with newspapers and toilet roll, squatted for 2 minutes and left just as rapidly leaving a fake poo behind as a memento.
The stunt was organized by End Water Poverty members in the UK to raise media attention for the issue and call on Prime Minister Gordon Brown to be a sanitation champion.
Tom Baker, a member of the End Water Poverty steering committee said:
"I take my toilet for granted so I wanted to do my part by flash-squatting outside parliament, to tell our politicians that they need to be doing a whole lot more to deliver taps and toilets for the billions of people around the world who don't have access to them.
Laura Keeley, Public Campaigns Manager for UNICEF UK added:
"We were supporting this event to highlight the indignity experienced daily by 2.5 billion people worldwide because they simply have nowhere to go to the toilet. Without basic sanitation facilities and access to clean water, disease spreads rapidly which results in 5000 children dying every day and millions more becoming too sick to go to school. "
Gerry Austin from WaterAid concluded:
"We want Gordon Brown to become a sanitation champion and speak to other world leaders about the importance of sanitation and water for all. Today was just a snapshot of what London would be like if we didn't have toilets"
Every year, 1.8 million children die as a result of disease caused by poor sanitation and unclean water, the equivalent of one child every 20 seconds .
See more photos of the event (opens in new window).
A 'flash squat' is an adapted version of a 'flash mob' - read a definition here.