Where and how family planning can liberate girls

It is only three years back since she finished her primary school education, but ever as an orphan Husna did not have the wherewithal to continue with her secondary education. None among her relatives were ready to pay fees for her studies, let alone other expenses.

She therefore decided to find a place in a college in Dar es Salaam where she could study hotel management. However, at some point, she realised she was pregnant just when she was ready to travel to Zanzibar for field practice.

But she could not risk travelling far from home since it was her first pregnancy. Nine months later, this April, she gave birth to a baby boy - Joseph. However, Husna was half happy, half sad.

Happy because God had blessed her with child, but also sad because she was not prepared to become a mother at this time. The child’s father is jobless as Janet. It will be a tough job to look after Joseph.

“I don’t know how it happened. I suddenly found out that I was pregnant. Yet my boyfriend was supposed to use a headgear, but never bothered to wear one. Nurses told me that safe family planning methods that I could use were abundant. Unfortunately it was too late since it couldn’t be reversed,” Husna said.

“The problem with family planning education is that it is not taught in school and whenever I talked about it at home I was branded a prostitute,” she added.

Husna is not the only girl facing this social predicament. Many Tanzanian girls and young women find themselves in a similar social cultural dilemma.

Statistics show that 44 percent of all women experience pregnancies by age 19. The fertility rate is about 5.4 and only 27 percent of the population has access to modern family planning methods.
TCDAA as pressure group

To address this social trackback, several stakeholders joined forces to form the Tanzania Coalition for Demographic Awareness and Action (TCDAA).

The not for profit organisation serves as a pressure group to promote the need for the government to manage such challenges and seize the opportunities of Tanzania’s rapidly changing population.

Institutions forming this coalition include Advance Family Planning, DSW, Engender Health, Health Promotion Tanzania, Marie Stopes Tanzania, Pathfinder, Umati, University of Dar es Salaam Department of Economics and the United Nations Association of Tanzania.

The coalition further intends to create awareness among stakeholders – including government officials, politicians and members of the public – about the pace and significance of Tanzania’s demographic change.

TCDAA also intends to push for national development and economic growth strategies, respond to the pace of Tanzania’s demographic change - including improved access to family planning and also alert all ministries of the fact that demographic change will affect their plans and objectives.

A senior representative with the Coalition, Halima Shariff asked the government to take note of how quickly Tanzania’s population is growing and changing.
“The transformation is relevant to all areas of economic policy and public welfare.

Yet it has not received the attention it deserves in terms of investing in areas that would adequately cater for the needs of a rapidly growing population,” she asserts.

Crushed dreams and more

Let alone crushing young girls’ dreams, like Husna’s - unplanned pregnancies have contributed to population growth, which is apparently becoming a serious problem in Tanzania.

As of 2012 when population and housing census were last conducted, Tanzania had about 45 million people. But with the current fertility rate of 5.4 against the growth rate of 2.7 percent, the United Nations has projected that come 2050, Tanzania’s population will be more than double - reaching 129 million, 145 million and 114 million by medium, high and low projections respectively.

Furthermore, data from 2012 Population and Housing Census indicate that Tanzania’s population aged bellow 25 was 63 percent, aged under 20 was 54 percent and aged under 15 was 45 percent.

Also, today, the number of children aged between 2 and 6 exceeds the number of people aged between 10 and 14 by 1,665,843. While experts predict that the number of primary school going children would grow by over 300,000 per year over next five years.

High levels of fertility have created a relatively big youth population with a high child dependency ratio in Tanzania. According to experts, the high dependency burden is one of the key factors undermining the country’s socioeconomic development and is thus threatening the attainment of Vision 2025 that aims to transform Tanzania into middle income country by 2025.

It is not like there isn’t any progress made whatsoever. Actually, studies show that fertility rate in Tanzania has been declining but at a snail’s pace because of the low level of education, lack of economic opportunities for women, especially in rural areas and high rate of school dropouts, early marriages and early child bearing by girls.

Other reasons include perceived high cultural and economic values for children, especially in the rural areas and high levels of unmet needs for family planning due to lack of access to contraception and cultural or psychosocial barriers of use of the same.

What should be done?

Among the specific steps, TCDAA recommends to the government that it should allocate sufficient funds to scale up access to modern family planning to young people to enable them to delay childbearing, complete education and start their careers.

TCDAA wants access to family planning to be at 60 percent by 2020, from the current 27 percent. Another strategy that TCDAA advocates is to ensure that comprehensive, scientifically accurate information on modern methods of family planning is included in the national secondary school curriculum.

TCDAA also recommends that educational reforms to introduce universal enrolment at secondary and tertiary levels and improve education system to produce skilled, and innovative graduates, that could steer the growth of the industrial sector for mass job creation.

The government is also advised to accelerate economic growth by paying particular attention to development of sectors with high growth and job creation potential.

It is unfortunate that Husna could not benefit from these proposed plans and strategies that will not only liberate women but also help the country deal with the rapid population growth and the challenges emanating from it.

Things have not and definitely will not be good for Joseph. However, we hope that they will be much better for her Husna’s daughter, if she happens to have one in future and the government takes the right steps.