Maravi

Monde explains rural population boom

COMMENT - Just mathematically speaking, you can't have a population boom (or any population growth) if you have an 'AID$ epidemic'.

Monde explains rural population boom
By Chiwoyu Sinyangwe in Lusaka and David Chongo in Solwezi
Fri 13 July 2012, 14:00 CAT

"Population boom in rural areas is as a result of lack of employment opportunities"
ITEZHI-TEZHI UPND member of parliament Greyford Monde has attributed the population boom in rural areas to lack of employment opportunities as locals resort to sex to eliminate boredom. Meanwhile, Vice-President Dr Guy Scott says the right to plan one's family is a fundamental freedom that should be sustained by a viable reproductive health regime.

Debating the report of the parliamentary committee on health, community development and social welfare, Monde said it would be difficult to halt the current high birth rate in the country, which statisticians say was especially so in rural areas and slums.

"With nothing to do, people will resort to activities that increase this issue high birth rate," Monde said in Parliament on Wednesday.

"With the levels of unemployment in the country, people are having nothing to do, causing this fertility to go up. We need to create jobs to ensure that the people are detracted from activities that will increase fertility."

And presenting the report, committee chairperson Dr Brian Chituwo said there was need for women to have comprehensive access to healthcare in the country.
He said the committee needed to broaden access to legal abortion to safeguard the health of women in the country.

"Your committee observes that unsafe abortion is a major cause of maternal mortality in Zambia," the report read in part. "Therefore, your Speaker committee recommends that the grounds for legal abortion should be broadened and its access implemented under criteria permitted by existing laws.

Furthermore, there is need to ensure expanded coverage of comprehensive safe abortion care services and popularise the termination of pregnancy Act to the general public."

And the committee said there was need to deal with the high concentration of trained health workers in urban areas which had compromised health delivery in rural areas.

"Arising from this fact, your committee recommends that the government should develop strict measures to ensure that it is mandatory for graduates from public or private health training institutions to serve a year in rural posting," said Dr Chituwo.

"Failure to serve in these rural postings should be accompanied by a penalty."
And speaking during the national commemoration of World Population Day in Solwezi on Wednesday, Vice-President Scott said family planning was a universal right.

He said unless there was ready access to family planning implements and information, the right would not be real.
Vice-President Scott noted that the poor, physically challenged, especially the young people, had difficulties accessing reproductive health information which was critical in population dynamics.

He said this in a speech read for him by North Western Province permanent secretary Augustine Seyuba.

Vice-President Scott said family planning was one of the key components of reproductive health.

UNFPA country representative Duah Owusu-Sarfo said reproductive health was an integral part of sustainable development.

He said a country's labour force needed to be healthy for it to effectively contribute to national development.
Owusu-Sarfo said only one in three rural women in the country had access to adequate care, especially during pregnancy.

Labels: RURAL AREAS

posted by MrK @ 2:10 PM