Muchiri Karanja
16 November 2009
Nairobi — Politicians, teachers and Catholic Church leaders are not amused: Married women in central Kenya do not want to have any more babies.
The 2008/2009 Demographic and Health Survey report released last week indicates that the region leads in family planning -- from female sterilisation, the pill, and intra-uterine devices.
Eight in every 100 married women in the area have been sterilised, and cannot have any more babies, while 67 in every 100 are actively using any available contraceptive to ward off babies.
Family planning activists may be elated, but not so Prof Wanjohi, a Catholic priest in Nyeri archdiocese: "This cannot be good news, this is disastrous," he said. From moral, economic, political and social perspectives, he says, the statistics are bad for Central.
His church considers the use of contraceptives immoral, unethical and equivalent to abortion. It advocates natural family planning, where couples who do not want more babies avoid sex during a woman's fertile days, usually 12 to 16 days before menstruation.
Already, Prof Wanjohi said, much of the younger generation in Central is steeped in alcohol, abortion, drugs and crime. In a few decades, he predicted, the region will be struggling with an aged population, weakened by contraceptives. "Some contraceptive are no longer in use in Europe and America, because of their long term side effects," he claimed.
Rebuttal was swift, however: "That is not true. Just because women are not using some contraceptives in Europe does not mean they are banned," retorted area director of public health George Gatiri.
A number of teachers interviewed by the Nation in the area say Prof Wanjohi's prophesy is already unfolding. Schools are recording lower enrolment and in some cases entire classrooms have been closed for lack of pupils. In one primary school in Mukurweini for example, four classrooms have been shut down.
"There are no pupils," one teacher who did not want to be named because she is not authorised to talk on behalf of the school said. Pressed for an opinion, she quipped: "Ask the parents, they are the ones doing family planning."
Area politicians were more guarded. Off the record, many express concern. Mathira MP Ephraim Maina, who is also the chairman of Central MPs caucus, promised to consult his fellow politicians before commenting.
Area politicians have been pushing for the one-man, one-vote system of determining the number of constituencies. "I do not wish to comment on the survey. Let us wait for the census results," said Projections by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics suggest the results may not deviate much from those of the 1999 population census. According to the census, the region had a birth rate of 33 babies per 1,000 people, way below the national average of 41.3 per 1,000.
The region's population is expected to grow by 118,000 between last year and this year, against 110,100 between 2007 and 2008. The Kenya Contraceptive Prevalence Survey results also indicated that the region has been leading in contraceptive usage since 1984.
Population planning experts say however, that the trend is good news. Ms Jennifer Kariuki of the Population Services International (PSI) told the Nation: "Development goes hand in hand with low fertility, so if the country hopes to attain Vision 2030, this is the way to go."
As for the Catholic Church's natural family planning method, the PSI official said the method had largely failed, thanks to uncooperative men. "Men are increasingly putting women in a dilemma. Some do not want their wives to use contraceptives; at the same time they do not want them to get pregnant."
In Manilla 16 couples took the government to court for denying them access to the pill. The largely Catholic Philippines government frowned upon contraceptives. In Buenos Aires, the contraceptive battle ended up in the Argentina's Supreme Court, which in 2002 ruled that the emergency pill was connected to abortion --another emotive topic.
In Washington early this year, US President Barack Obama, in lifting a ban on "Abortion funds" said: "For too long, international family planning ... has been the subject of a back and forth debate that has served only to divide us. I have no desire to continue this stale and fruitless debate." In Nyeri, the debate has just started.
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