After so many deaths, too many births in Rwanda - Africa & Middle East -
International Herald Tribune
By Stephen Kinzer
MAYANGE, Rwanda Convincing women in the deeply impoverished Rwandan
countryside that they should have fewer children is a daunting task. "They
say we're not Christian," said Jeannette Mukabalisa, a local health
advocate, of the predominantly Catholic population. "They say, 'You're town
people, we're traditional.' Children bring these families prestige. For
them, children come from God. So it's difficult, very difficult."
After the 1994 genocide, in which more than 800,000 Rwandans were
slaughtered, it seemed difficult to believe that overpopulation would ever
be a problem. Yet Rwanda has long had more people than its meager resources
and small area can support.
In a recent interview, President Paul Kagame said he was preparing a
sweeping population control program, to be unveiled in the coming months,
that would aim to cut Rwanda's birth rate by at least half.
"We recognize we are late on this," Kagame said.
After the genocide, officials were reluctant to promote population control
because they feared it would offend the survivors, who believed they had a
right to replenish what they had lost.
"Because of the genocide, many people didn't want to hear about birth
control," said Odette Nyiramilimo, a legislator who proposed a bill last
year that would have given incentives and detailed disincentives for
families to limit themselves to three children. Previous efforts had been
opposed by officials who told Nyiramilimo that education, not population,
was the problem.
But nearly half of Rwanda's legislators are female, and Nyiramilimo is among
several who have spent years pushing for a serious population control
effort.
The country's population has quadrupled over the last half-century. Today
Rwanda has 8.8 million people; most are subsistence farmers. If current
fertility rates are not curbed Rwandan women bear an average of 6.1
children the population will double by 2030. That would almost certainly
doom Kagame's ambitious plan to raise Rwanda from poverty over that same
period.
"The last government's philosophy was that the country was too small for all
Rwandans," said Dr. Richard Sezibera, a close adviser to Kagame, referring
to the rulers who oversaw the genocide. "We insisted that the country was
big enough to accommodate everybody. But many people took that to apply to
the unborn as well, and we're having to face that mind-set."
Sezibera and Kagame, like many members of the minority Tutsi group that
suffered the brunt of the genocide, were forced out of Rwanda decades ago
and grew up as refugees.
Officials who are designing the new population control program said it would
include a requirement that everyone who visits a hospital or health center
for any reason be counseled on family planning. Women of child-bearing age
will be offered free contraceptive devices including Norplant II, a small
silicone pin that is inserted beneath the skin and is effective for up to
five years. All schools will offer comprehensive sex education courses.
"The basis for this new campaign is already in place," said Laura Hoemeke,
director of the Twubakane Decentralization and Health Project, a community
initiative that includes family planning. Though the Bush administration has
often discouraged birth control, the United States government is financing
this program.
Political opposition to population control measures has melted away as it
has become clear that Kagame now strongly favors them.
In a sign of the changing climate, a government-sponsored newspaper, New
Times, recently published a supplement with a front-page headline, "Rapid
Population Growth: A Constraint on Resources." Below was a photo of an
idyllic landscape with the caption, "This beautiful scenery will diminish if
population is not controlled." An accompanying editorial said that Rwanda's
population "is already big enough" and that "drastic measures" were needed
to keep it from growing.
Officials designing the population control campaign say they hope to produce
a plan that could become a model for other African countries, and perhaps
persuade a foreign philanthropy to pay its entire cost. They have already
begun consulting specialists from the United States and other countries.
Though Rwanda is predominantly Catholic, the church's leaders here are not
expected to oppose a campaign for population control. A number of priests,
nuns and lay workers participated in the 1994 genocide, which weakened the
church's moral authority, and has led it to avoid politics.
Kagame said he thought the church might present a problem, but noted that it
had already showed a flexibility that might not have been expected on issues
like AIDS education and condom distribution. "They do not come out and
preach, as we do, but they do not actively oppose what we are doing," he
said.
According to Josh Ruxin, an American public health administrator based in
Rwanda, the rate of Rwandans living in extreme poverty declined from 60.4
percent to 56.6 percent from 2001 to 2006. Ruxin is helping to design the
new population control project. "If Rwanda wants to be an Asian tiger," he
said, "this is where it all starts."
Thé Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni and Dr. Kiiza Besigye Uganda is in anarchy"
Kuungana Mulindwa Mawasiliano Kikundi
"Pamoja na Yoweri Museveni na Dk. Kiiza Besigye Uganda ni katika machafuko"
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