The present rate of population rise in Ethiopia is alarming. I first addressed this issue on: Suggestions in Solving the Hunger Problem (1) over a year ago and Family Planning was one of several ways suggested as a solution to the problem. Since that article was written, the situation has not abated, but if anything, it has only worsened with the population topping over seventy million. Population control is hardly ever an easy problem, and it is not going to be easy to solve here. It is like a huge boulder rolling downhill. Before the boulder starts to move, a small rock might be all that is needed to hold it secured in its place. But once it begins to roll, it will gather momentum, and might never stop until it crashes into tiny bits down below.

Some have suggested it is “Malthusian” and alarmist to think in this way and to paint an unnecessarily dark picture unlikely to occur. Ethiopia’s recurring famines, however, prove that there is much truth to the Malthusian (2) theory.  Unlike Thomas Malthus however, we believe, no matter how dark the picture might look, it is not inevitable for population explosion to take place and for famines and starvation to devastate our people. We know the problem can be solved, and that it is up to us to come up with concrete solutions.

Having explored the problems in previous issues, it may not be necessary to dwell on them here, so, we will instead, focus only on some possible solutions, and see how one might be able to curb the rising population and avert the impending disaster.  China is one example of a nation that has successfully controlled its population by passing strict laws that include coerced abortions.  If the steps we are about to suggest are timely implemented, one might never need to take drastic steps like that. The long-term solution may well be development, but is there anything one can do to get a handle on the problem today? The answer is a resounding “Yes”!

First, we need to see the existing situation on the ground level. According to the Gender Policy Dialogue, held in Awassa, Ethiopia, last year, which served as a forum to “…spread the gospel of equality of the sexes” and, at the same time, exorcize the devil of patriarchy in Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region, of which Awassa is the capital, this is what we find: -

“…A participant in the panel, W/ro. Amarech, stated that the rate of mortality of children and women as a result of preventable diseases is staggering. According to her, the one thing missing from life in the region is proper family planning services. “Even though this is a right of women,” she points out, “opposition by partners, family and others has made it unthinkable for the woman to benefit from family planning services.” Meanwhile, she could quote studies that indicate rampant harmful traditional practices, the predominance of the view that girl children are simply household items that can be sold for a large dowry, excluding girls from inheritance, marriages by abduction, rape... “What's more alarming is that most of the people in the areas covered in the survey view these practices as normal and have no plans of changing them” (3)

If one cannot listen to these women involved in the area, who are in direct contact with the actual struggle, living with the realities everyday, speaking and expressing their concerns and findings, then one may never understand the true nature of the problem, let alone find a solution for it. As clearly stated by W/ro Amarech, the panelist, the ancient hurdle of tradition is in the way of progress. The war against population rise will only be won in the minds of people. The male and the female part of the population need to be taught to change their attitudes on many aspects of their relationships. Here is where Family Planning comes into the picture with solutions.

The words of W/ro Amarech are reinforced by a report and terrible statistics from Family Planning experts of Engender Health in Ethiopia, which state: -

“Approximately 44% of Ethiopia's largely rural population is under the age of 15. The HIV prevalence rate stands at 10.6%, among the highest on the African continent. Contraceptive prevalence is very low—only 8% of women of reproductive age use any method of family planning—although studies indicate that half of Ethiopian women would like to prevent or delay pregnancy. However, cultural and social norms encourage childbearing and large families. In addition, reproductive health services are not widely accessible to the population. When available, the quality of services, including availability of contraceptive supplies, is very inadequate. One tragic consequence of limited contraceptive supplies has been a high abortion rate—among the highest in Sub-Saharan Africa—which in turn has contributed to high rates of maternal mortality. Ethiopia has among the highest fertility, infant mortality, and maternal death rates in the world...” (4)

It is imperative that immediate steps, and on a large scale, be taken if one is going to make any dent on this front. Some excellent work is being done by Family Guidance Association of Ethiopia (FGAE), and other NGOs like Engender Health, but it is not adequate. The figure of about fifty Family Planning centers are to be found in the whole country has been given by some, which means one center is serving close to a million and half people. Clearly, this will not accomplish the job. Family planning is a holistic approach that deals with a wide range of issues essential to the family. It deals with such subjects as child care, cleanliness and hygiene, the body-Biology and reproduction, how to plan and/or space pregnancy, or how to prevent it altogether with a variety of techniques, etc.  Many of the “preventable diseases” causing the death of many women and children today can also be addressed and prevented with simple techniques in cleanliness, hygiene, food handling and preparation, etc.

There are those in the Fundamental Right that do not want us to think except that Family Planning is abortion and abortion only, and do not even want us to explore any further. It is with that bias in mind that the USA, since the time of President Ronald Regan, refused to fund WHO in Family Planning projects of the UN. This bias is common among most religious leaders, Christian, Islam, Judaic, etc. who state: “Children are the gift of God and one should not interfere with the work of the Creator. Besides, didn’t God bless Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply?”

But the truth of the matter is that, if correctly applied, Family Planning might, in fact, reduce, and even completely eliminate the need for abortion in the first place. If a woman can prevent unwanted pregnancies, what need would she have for abortion? But that simple logic and reasoning is far too complicated to the minds of those that want us to:  ‘Just believe... If you will only believe, God will provide for his creatures.’  How many scenes of starved children will they have to see before they change their minds? As for the Catholics and the Christian Right in the US, I, for one, have given up that they will ever change their mind. And as long as these have any say in the matter as political pressure groups, there will never be a penny coming from the USA for WHO Family Planning Programs in the Third World.

The question then is: what can the Ethiopian Government do to take care of business at home? The most important step is to call all religious leaders to team up with government and other social associations in Family Planning Programs. This has to start with a dialog between government and religious leaders. The government should start by accepting the stand of religious leaders that God, indeed, will provide for his creatures, but that God also expects people to use their mind. How could it be acceptable in God’s eyes to make children and see them starve? Is it not a sin for anyone to produce children they cannot feed and clothe, let alone send to school?  This is the same as condemning a child to poverty, if not to an early death by starvation. Surely, God does not like that… With dialogs like these, one should win over the religious leaders, and get them to stand on the side of Family Planning. Once they see the point, and I have every confidence in Ethiopian Orthodox Church clergy and all other religious leaders, that they are far more realistic and sophisticated than the smug and self righteous ones in the extreme Right here in the USA, they will team up with Family Planning Programs whole heartedly, and make a significant contribution to the program.

Ethiopian clergy and all religious leaders should also be educated that Family Planning includes basic hygiene, child care, and a host of similar programs in the use of condoms and other contraceptives that would help prevent the spread of many venereal diseases like HIV/AIDS, which are killing the young and old today. How could religious leaders oppose and stand against a solution that prevents the sickness and death of their flock? I have no doubt that once their eyes are opened to these facts, they would be at the forefront of the struggle and fight against these problems. And once they join the fight, every church or religious center will have become an extension of the Family Planning center, and would reach a much wider population.

Another very important change in the modality of the program is to tailor it to suite the mindset of the young Ethiopian peasant girl and with her as the focus. All technical materials should be presented in a pictorial way, without any prerequisites for reading or writing.  Ethiopian artists can be given the task of translating any complex and abstract ideas into easily understandable pictures and images, bearing the custom, taste, and decorum of every locality in mind. Care should be taken to make sure these pictures and diagrams are educational and not offensive or pornographic in any way. 

Not only painters, but other visual artists too, should be encouraged by the Ministry of Arts and Culture to produce short plays that highlight the plight of women in the traditional Ethiopian peasant society; the various abuses they suffer and endure, the arranged marriages, the abductions, the rapes, the unsanitary abortions, the deaths (of mother and/or child) that result, etc. Short plays like these could be very effective tools in spreading the gospel of “Women’s Liberation” and in teaching the masses of what is legal and what is illegal, what is acceptable, and what is unacceptable in modern day Ethiopia.  Short plays like these can be performed in every village and town throughout the nation to spread the message of Family Planning to all.

And what can be done about the established mindset of male superiority? How can a young girl raised with the ‘…view that female children are simply household items that can be sold for a large dowry, … the exclusion of girls from family inheritance, marriages by abduction, rape... where most people in the areas view these practices as normal…’, (5)  overcome these hurdles alone? Tradition is one of the hardest things to change, but one should not give up. A peasant girl should not be expected to overcome these, and the inferiority complex inculcated in her mind since childhood, all on her own. The next step would then be to set up ‘Yesetoch Mahber’ (Feminine Club) next to, or even within the same offices as the Family Planning Clinics. 

After the clinics provide the technical education on Family Planning, Yesetoch Mahber should follow suite by ideological education to change the mindset and outlook of the young peasant girl, and to organize the women of the locality and teach them to reject and fight against the age-old tethers of tradition. The mindset of the men also needs to change. How can that be done? Yesetoch Mahber should not be just an educational office, but should also have “teeth,” i.e., the power to drag any husband or father to court when they break the law by abusing a woman, have them pay fines, face imprisonment, lose face and be socially disgraced… etc. Young men and women, students of The Faculty of Law in Addis Ababa University, could assist the offices of Yesetoch Mahebr in all legal matters in every district during their year of National Service, and be required to write papers on their experiences during the year.

The education of the Ethiopian peasant girl is the key to controlling the rising population of Ethiopia. Population is a time bomb that is already showing some signs of exploding in famines, and will continue to worsen unless quick and drastic steps are taken to curb it. The steps we listed above are ways to defuse that time bomb. If the Ethiopian Government takes these simple steps and puts them in practice, within a period of five years or less, a noticeable drop would be observed in the present rise of population.

If the government wants to conduct trial runs in a few localities and villages to carry out pilot projects, that too, should be welcomed.  Important lessons could be learned that could show the way on how these ideas can best be implemented in the most effective way when it is time to execute them on a mass and nationwide scale. And time, of course, is of the essence!

                                                                                                            G. E. Gorfu

          Notes:

1)  Suggestions in Solving the Hunger Problem. G. E. Gorfu, January 2003.

2)  From An Essay on the Principles of Population, Printed for J. Johnson in St. Paul’s Churchyard, London, 1798.  A theory of Thomas Malthus, (1766-1834) which states that food production can never keep up with population increase, and that sooner of later, famines are inevitable.

3)  Reporter: http://www.ethiopianreporter.com/displayenglish.php?id=513

4)  http://www.engenderhealth.org/ia/cbc/ethiopia.html

5)  Abduction: - http://www.engenderhealth.org/ia/cbc/ethiopia-2.html