Girl, seven, reports father to police in India for not building her a toilet

A seven-year-old girl has reported her father to the police in India for refusing to build her a toilet.

Hanifa Zaara said her father broke his promise to build her one, after she said she “felt ashamed” to relieve herself outside.

The schoolgirl, who lives with her parents in Ambur, a town in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, has never had a toilet in her house, the BBC reports.

She said only a few people in her neighbourhood had a toilet and while she was in nursery she asked her father to build her one.

Hanifa said: “I was ashamed to go outside and I felt bad when people looked at me.”

The youngster wrote a letter to the police reporting her father, claiming he promised to build her one if she did well at school.

She wrote to officers saying she was at the top of her class since nursery and her father said he is “only saying he will do it” adding that this was a “a form of cheating”.

Her father told the BBC he had asked his daughter for more time to do it, as he did not have enough money to complete it.

The police said the girl’s complaint was “very honest” and have since tried to resolve the problem.

There is now a plan to raise money to build more than 500 toilets in Hanifa’s neighbourhood, after district officials were alerted.

City commissioner S Parthasarathy said: “We were very happy to see her complained. We organise classes in schools to encourage children to ask their parents for toilets at home.”