We each spend an average of three years of our lives sitting on them, King George II of Great Britain died while on his in 1760 and 2.5 billion people still do not have access to one. The humble lavatory is the unlikely subject of global celebration on Monday, as one of the world's most essential inventions but one that too many people still struggle without. Although many of us tend to take ours for granted, campaigners hope that World Toilet Day 2012 will draw attention to what they 're calling the global sanitation crisis, with over a third of people worldwide living without a clean and private place to go. This means that one in three people still have to defecate in the open, using fields or bushes, rivers, railway lines or roadsides, or simply a plastic bag. Others use unsanitary latrines or disease-ridden and foul-smelling buckets. The majority of those without access to a toilet live in sub-Saharan Africa or Asia, with over half of people in Asia not having proper sanitation, according to the UK-based charity, WaterAid. Ajara lives in a slum in the city of Gwalior in the Madhya Pradesh province of India. She told WaterAid how people in her community have to defecate on a nearby hilltop. There are no trees and privacy at the moment and so we have to wait until night to go there. It's difficult for old people to go and it's hard to go at night. It's also hard for