Female students from 12 universities used the occasion of World Toilet Day on Nov 19 to call for more women's restrooms in universities.

The students, from universities including Beijing Normal University, Tianjin Normal University and Central China Normal University, wrote letters to their university heads, asking for more toilets for women.

Li Maizi, initiator of the activity and a female student in a college in Xi'an, capital of Shaanxi province, said that the female students appealed to university authorities to double the current number of toilets for women, according to a report in Shandong Business Daily.

"The first thing for me to do after class is to rush to the bathroom," Wu Caiyun, a female student at the Chinese language and literature department of Shandong Normal University, said on Nov 20. "The proportion of females to males is 4-1 in my class."

Some universities have been dealing in recent years with the problem of the shortage of women's facilities. For example, Hainan Normal University has redesignated some men’s toilets to women's toilets, and the Guangxi Normal University has established more women's facilities since last year.