Family planning in Rwanda
July 10, 2012
Rwanda's genocide took just 100 days. Between April and June 1994, ethnic Hutu militia and soldiers killed at least 800,000 minority Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus. In 1990 the country's population stood at 7.1 million. By 1995, the year after the genocide, it had fallen to 5.6 million.
The decline did not last long and the population began to climb again. By 2005, high population levels, coupled with inadequate health facilities and traditional attitudes about family size, were being seen as an obstacle to much-needed sustainable development. Hence the government's appeal to parents to have no more than three children.
Fertility decline
Arthur Asiimwe is the director general of Rwanda's health communication center, which belongs to the ministry of health. He insists advocacy has borne fruit and people are adhering to family planning measures.
"If you look at the findings of the demographic health survey, you'll find that in 2005 a Rwandan mother would bear 6.5 children on average. By 2010 that had sunk to 4.6 children," he says.
According to Asiimwe, all villages in Rwanda have been supplied with two trained community health workers who give counselling in the use of contraceptives. In some parts of the country, men are being offered a vasectomy, voluntary sterilization. Uwemana Gada, already a father of a large family, took this option.
"I have six children and their mother and I don't have any formal means of earning a living," he says. "I have been finding it difficult to cater for my children so why should I continue adding more?"
Genocide orphans
Not everybody is so pragmatic. Joyce Uwera finds it impossible to escape from her country's bloodstained past.
"My husband and I are genocide orphans, my husband has no other family and neither do I. We want to have many children to compensate for the families we lost, and then you tell me about having one child, it's impossible!"
There is no law in Rwanda saying couples can only have three children. Officials are convinced the appeals will continue to have an impact and the situation in the densely populated country will improve. They point to reductions in child mortality and poverty, and improvements in education, which they believe could serve as an example to other countries with high birth rates and the attendant consequences.
On UN World Population Day (July 11) campaigners are underlining the importance of family planning, gender equality, eradicating poverty, improving maternal health and human rights.
Author: Sylvanus Karemera, Kigali / mc
Editor: Susan Houlton