Why is family planning only a woman's responsibility?

 Saturday 30 November 2024

Islamabad (News International / Pakistan New - 11th Nov, 2024 ) It was the children's ward of a government hospital in Islamabad, where a fragile girl was sitting in the corner, holding her weak child in her arms. She must have been about nineteen or twenty years old. I thought she needed help. With this thought in mind, I went closer to her and asked her in a soft tone if she needed any help. She refused, so I asked her if this was her first child. She replied with blank eyes: No, the fifth.

This answer was enough to surprise me, but before I could ask anything more, her mother-in-law proudly said, "First there were four daughters, and now there is a son."

In Pakistan, where about 15,000 children are born every day in a population of 240 million, taking care of the conditions of birth of these children and the health of the mother is not a social or government priority.

But the birth of each new child is a new test and a physical sacrifice for a woman. On the other hand, women are often treated inhumanely for centuries, meaning that in response to all the work and sacrifices, they often hear the phrase: “What are you doing after all?”

To control the rapidly growing population in Pakistan, various family planning projects were launched in collaboration with the government and international organizations.

However, all these efforts were limited to women. Lady health workers were given the responsibility of reaching out to women and teaching them family planning methods. But the involvement of men was negligible.

Most of the methods available for contraception are borne by women, including various hormonal drugs, surgical methods, or internal physical devices.

All of these affect a woman’s body and can affect her health.

According to available data, every fifty minutes a woman dies in Pakistan due to complications of pregnancy and childbirth, and this risk is many times higher in rural areas. According to the UNFPA report, contraceptives and safe childbirth facilities are still out of reach for millions of women.

Surprisingly, the Universal Health Coverage Index in Pakistan is only 21 percent, which is disappointingly low compared to other countries in the world.

These conditions affect not only women’s health but also the entire family and society, but despite this, progress on family planning is slow. If the current pace continues, it may take 122 years for the maternal mortality rate to reach zero in Pakistan and another 93 years for the need for family planning to be met.

A common trend in Pakistani society is that the issue of family planning is limited to women, while men are not encouraged to participate in it. Men are reluctant to use simple and safe methods like condoms because they believe that they reduce the pleasure of sex or that the method is unreliable. Moreover, permanent solutions like sterilization are also considered an attack on masculinity.

On the other hand, women have to bear the burden of various contraceptive drugs and methods, the use of which affects the body's hormones, but women are not provided with much awareness about their effects and harms.

Due to the lack of education of women in Pakistan, it is also difficult for them to understand the effects that the use of contraceptive drugs or methods can have on their physical and mental health.

On the other hand, women's health issues are generally given less importance in homes and hospitals, which makes their lives more difficult.

The role of women in the family is limited to fulfilling every responsibility, while only economic responsibility is considered important for men. But keeping men completely away from contraceptive drugs and methods is an abuse of women's physical and mental health.

No one else should have authority over a woman’s body. She should have the right to decide for herself when and how many children to have. Providing this awareness and facilities is not only the responsibility of the government but also of the entire society. A woman’s body is a means of shaping a human life, not a battlefield where the burden of social traditions and responsibilities is placed on it.

Note: The opinions expressed in any blog, comment or column of DW Urdu are the personal opinions of the author, with which DW does not necessarily agree.