Water, an essential of survival, all too often becomes a weapon against the most vulnerable, whether amid wartime or a struggle to keep up with a rising utility bill. But whether in the midst of a fatal water crisis in Sudan or in Metro Detroit, a root cause is often shared: the commodification of a human right.
In 2010, The United Nations (UN) adopted a resolution to formally recognize water as a human right. Water is an essential to leading a life of dignity and having access to healthcare and adequate sanitation–rights affirmed in the 1948 UN Declaration of Human Rights. However, although legislation can harbor the best of intentions, the gap between legal codification and the realities communities face is far, and in many cases, growing.
In Sudan, more than two years of civil war have forcibly displaced over 11 million people, exacerbating famine and water scarcity in a country pressed by war. In April of 2023, tensions between the Sudanese Armed Forces and a paramilitary unit, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), spilled over into full-scale fighting. At its heart is a burgeoning crisis over resources, with water being the greatest cost.
In the recent past, several conflicts can be attributed to disputes over governing resources. Although the country is rich with natural resources — from the Kordofan oil fields to the Blue and White Nile Rivers —Sudan’s desertified pockets present flash points for dispute over how a limited supply should be managed. Amid the destruction of war and waves of people fleeing drought conditions in the north, water systems have borne the impact.
Gofran Ahmed and Mohammed Abdelgadir, writers of the global storytelling project OneWater.Blue, have been documenting Sudan’s current state of resources.
“Sudan’s WASH (Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene) infrastructure has been “severely, and, in some cases, deliberately, damaged,” Ahmed and Abdelgadir said.
While it is evident that artillery fire and competition for control of these facilities is responsible for the degradation, other causes are more insidious: displaced workers, the collapse of civil infrastructure and heightened insecurities as many feel that their state government can no longer protect
Sudan’s Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation does not set clear expectations for managing the country’s water supply. The lack of governmental guidance on best practices has led to poor investments and underdevelopment in capacity-building. This is coupled by the challenges faced with reconciling the interests of different stakeholders, who may include ethnic populations that are at conflict with one another. These factors have all stood in the way of building a robust water system, the lack thereof a wound exposed by a dire situation.
Now, panning to the Great Lakes region, water accessibility remains a problem in industrialized nations as well.
Even as a beneficiary of one of the world’s reservoirs of freshwater, Detroit residents grapple with the lasting toll of a previous water crisis. And while the scale is smaller than Sudan’s, a common cause can be found: the poorly informed decisions of local governments.
In 2014, The Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) conducted the largest mass water shutoffs in U.S. history, leaving over 20,000 residents without water.
Leading up to the shutoffs, DWSD documents revealed it had undercharged water customers in previous pay periods, citing a debt of $89 million in uncollected costs. After the department terminated water services in the city, water coalitions stepped in to try and fill the gap by distributing bottled water to affected families, who then rationed it across household activities.
Years later, after a new payment plan was introduced to help customers catch up on missed payments and offer fairer rates to the lowest income households, many Detroiters still suffer. For some, bills are at an all-time high.
On Dec. 17, at a joint session held by DWSD and Detroit’s Water Advisory Council, Detroit resident Danita Wilson complained of accumulating $3,000 in debt although her water usage had not changed. Others in attendance similarly expressed their frustrations with DWSD’s collection system, asserting their claim to water as a human right.
Whether it is a demand that exceeds supply in Sudan’s displacement camps or high water rates around the nation, barriers to water access present a domino effect, toppling other support-systems: healthcare, home and family.
The collapse hits children hardest. Water shutoffs not only create an unsafe environment for families but can, under state law, render a home inadequate for a child to remain in, according to a news release by the Healing Our Waters—Great Lakes Coalition. If these shutoffs endure for more than three days, children may be transferred into social services and homes are predisposed to liens by collection agencies. Consequently, a terminated water supply affects all aspects of a child’s life, standing in the way of the security, education and the supportive domestic life so critical to healthy development.
Despite these bleaker histories, the rallying cries for water have been taken up by activists in Michigan and around the world.
A new bill, reintroduced in the Michigan legislature by a bipartisan coalition, proposes debt-forgiveness and a more equitable, income-based rates calculation.
If passed, the state could become the first to offer a payment determination adjusted to income, setting a precedent for affordability, not exclusion.
Meanwhile, in territories at war, nonprofit aid workers who help dig community wells and deliver clean drinking water to victims are united in cause with activists; they maintain that water is not the claim of the few, but the right of all.
