Calls for equal access to baby changing areas
It is an experience many dads will have had.
With no access to a baby changing area in the men’s toilet, they have had to change their child’s nappy on any flat surface that’s available – a toilet seat, a countertop above the sink, even the lid of a wheelie bin.
A UK-wide campaign is aiming to bring that “sexist annoyance” to an end, by calling for changing areas to be accessible to everyone.
About 15% of all public toilets in the UK have baby changes accessible to all caregivers, according to Love and Power, which is leading the It's a Bum Deal campaign.
Sean Rees, 40, from Cardiff, sees it as an “obvious gap” that could easily be resolved, by providing baby changing tables in male toilets.
He has two young children, and has often had to use whatever flat surface is available to change them.
“You have to take off your jacket and put it on the toilet, and that often isn’t the most clean environment,” he said.
“If you're on your own, that’s your only choice, but if you’re not on your own it’s always the woman that has to do the changing."
Charlotte Fischer, co-director of Love and Power, said that due to a lack of access to changing facilities, her partner had changed their children on surfaces that are not “particularly safe or hygienic”.
“And I’ve had to change more than my fair share of nappies when they’ve been available, but only in women’s toilets,” she said.
The issue is a “sexist annoyance”, and a “reminder of whose job an organisation thinks childcare is”, Ms Fischer said.
“But for gay dads, widowed dads, single dads, or dads who just want to be able to take their kids out on their own, it’s a real barrier to public space and a reflection of the lack of public support caregiving of any kind gets,” she said.
The campaign aims to start locally, urging building operators to make changing facilities available to everyone, before moving towards a national law, inspired by legislation introduced in the United States by former President Barack Obama.
In 2016, President Obama introduced the Bathrooms Accessible in Every Situation (BABIES) Act, which ruled that male toilets in public buildings must have baby changing facilities.
The campaign is supported by Tottenham Hotspur, which has become its first “fair change” venue, with 10 accessible bathrooms for all caregivers in its stadium, with Wales and Spurs player Ben Davies taking part.
Cardiff-based clothing company Black & Beech has also created a line of merchandise with profits supporting the campaign.
Another supporter is the British Toilet Association, whose director, Raymond Martin, has personal experience of the issue.
When his wife died more than 30 years ago, he was a widowed father to a new-born baby girl and a one-year-old daughter.
“I used to have to wait outside the female toilets and ask strangers for the opportunity to enter their facilities to change the baby’s nappy. It was humiliating,” he said.
“There can be no valid reason that children’s rights have been left out of bathroom legislation, other than the engineers and planners weren’t thinking clearly about how families have to find decent clean toilets with the correct provision for their kids,” he said.
The Welsh government has been approached for comment.
