The Sunday Mail
Munyaradzi Dodzo and Marvellous Mhloyi
We make reference to the article penned by Messrs Tobaiwa Mudede and Richard Hondo arguing that Zimbabwe needs to stimulate population growth by abandoning modern contraception. In our last instalment, we argued that birth control keeps poverty in check, eases pressure on limited resources and infrastructure and, hence, improves the socio-economic welfare of people.
We will not repeat ourselves but proceed by assessing the points raised by the respected gentlemen in light of the realities obtaining in our country.
We said that this country needs an optimum population and not a large one, but were criticised for being “academic” and probably missing the “balance between the ideal and the practical”.
Granted, we should always aim for the ideal.
The last two censuses showed a positive annual growth rate of 1,1 percent while the Demographic and Health Survey also showed a high contraceptive rate of about 60 percent. Our population was growing at about 3,1 percent between 1982 and 1992.
Had contraceptive prevalence remained as low as it was during the colonial regime, or at zero as is suggested by the honourable messrs, the 1992 population of 10,4 million would have doubled by 2012, but only grew to 12,6 million.
Consistent with high growth rates is the youthfulness of a population. So without contraception, we would be an estimated 20,8 million-strong, with at least 45 percent below 15 years old.
The resultant problems include too few places for primary and secondary school enrolment; high unemployment rates; high burden of dependency; no savings; hence no investment or development, to mention just a few of the myriad problems.
Need we say more about the excessive pressure exerted on an already burdened health system?
All the celebrated post-independence gains in maternal, infant and child health would be severely reversed should we allow Zimbabwe to experience a natural fertility regime.
Given the current growth rate of 1,1 percent, the Zimbabwean population will still double but in 64 years. We should build on the solid foundation for family planning laid by Government in the 1980s through the then Health Minister, Dr Sydney Sekeramayi, and Zimbabwe National Family Planning Council director Esther Bohene.
The writers also argued that Zimbabwe should build a big cohort to secure national security. We are not experts in national security but we know that people rarely procreate to raise soldiers and that sector needs educated, healthy and well-trained men and women.
They also argued that “there is no way the country can protect itself with a handful of citizens”. Surely, we cannot reproduce to satisfy such an ultra-defensive stance. National security implies safety from internal and external threats.
Africa’s most populous nation with around 170 million citizens, Nigeria, is fighting internal threats to national security caused by sectarian upheavals.
Governments report first to their citizens while also answering to any foreign threats.
President Mugabe is on record saying national leaders, political parties and national development depend on the power of (a content) people.
Nothing can be nearer the truth.
The writers want “a population size that effectively counteracts deaths due to natural causes, HIV and Aids, to give the country a positive growth rate”.
Well, as stated earlier, we already have a positive population growth rate in spite of these forces.
Negative growth rates can be worrisome, but this country can still prosper with a slow-growing population or even a static one, at least until we pull out of the stubborn socio-economic challenges currently affecting us.
We do not need a baby boom to safeguard our national assets as much as policies that guarantee accountability, ownership, optimum utilisation and guardianship of resources.
Population size is not as influential as its composition in the operation of government, state of the economy and social evolution.
A big population without cohesive values does not guarantee national security, stability and prosperity.
They also observed that the majority of people exploiting the country’s mineral resources are foreigners while the local population “is condemned to panning in rivers and disused mines”.
This is rather contradictory in that one would expect the majority, of which locals are, to be at the forefront of exploiting their God-given natural resources if numbers mattered as is purported.
The Pareto Principle shows that 20 percent of the world’s population owns and enjoys 80 percent of the resources!
What is needed is not to keep on bearing children and condemning them to the “accursed” 80 percent. Rather, we need policies that mentally emancipate, inculcate national responsibility, instil stewardship, promote leadership accountability, empower the majority and equitably distribute resources.
Indeed, the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation (Zim-Asset) mentions some of these issues.
Just before penning off, the writers concede: “Let us give natural population growth a chance and leave the actual management of births to parents because they are the ones who know how to space their children vis-à-vis their capacity to support them”.
Welcome home, gentlemen!
Is not this what birth control is all about: giving people the choice on the desired number of children, when to have them, how often and how late in their lives?
Zimbabwe is a signatory of the ICPD of 1994 which underlies the Millennium Development Goals that we are pursuing.
There is no law in this country that compels anyone to control birth or use any specific method.
Service providers only advise on the options for spacing or limiting births.
Thus, birth control upholds parents’ right to decide on the number of children they can support.
No government in the world is ready, willing or able to provide free food, shelter, clothing and medical care to children.
If the parents cannot afford too many children, the State cannot. Our own offspring will condemn us if we deny them a good life.
Women should be wary since their rights can be violated through excessive fertility. Women bear the brunt of carrying pregnancies, delivering them and raising children.
They have to grapple with the menace of maternal morbidity and mortality for which there is no similar threat affecting men.
Birth control ensures women do not start child-bearing too early; do not have too many children; do not have births that are too closely spaced; and do not take child-bearing too late in their reproductive lives and endanger their lives.
Rather, women should put their energy to production more than to reproduction.
This country needs women to lead on the social, economic and political fronts, just as men. Child-bearing can suppress women’s freedoms.
Although they have a natural duty to bear children, they should be allowed to make informed choices about it.
Before closing their submission, the two gentlemen appeared to have preached to themselves and repented in the same article.
Their last point attacked birth control methods and not birth control itself. Yes, some of the methods have side-effects, but this is why we have to exercise freedom of choice in light of the knowledge provided by experts.
Sadly, the writers suspect the providers of pushing a nefarious Western agenda.
There is no secrecy about the dangers posed by some methods, but it should be easy for a woman to choose a favourable one among many.
The enemies of the State and Government would be happy if Government fails to manage a huge population.
When our farms, industries, hospitals, schools, water and sewage reticulation systems and infrastructure fail to support the populace, they are armed to attack.
But when we have well-kept, small families, they are disarmed. Any number can be “small” if well catered for.
Lastly, birth control is not entirely an imperialist gimmick to limit population growth among blacks.
Way before colonisation, Africans had their own birth control methods, among them withdrawal and body-reading by women.
Modern birth control methods only enhanced contraception, just the way automobiles revolutionised transportation.
Developed countries also promote birth control amongst their own people. China, a contemporary economic and political giant, is famed for its one-child policy.
Birth control is just a tool that can be used to advance certain interests by individuals or nations.
As examples: a woman can choose to delay child-bearing if she is not physically fit to do so at the time; a married couple in college can decide to delay having children until after graduation; an unemployed man can stop child-bearing until after getting a job or securing a project.
Such choices can only succeed with birth control.
We write in support of birth control as a choice.
Those against it should exercise their constitutional rights as long as the consequences of their choices do not infringe on other people’s rights or deprive the State in any way.
We hope this debate will enlighten readers and motivate them to do what is best for their families and our country.
Professor Marvellous Mhloyi is a demographer and lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe. Mr Munyaradzi K Dodzo is a researcher with a local institution.
