Why no birth control ?

blossomhill_2

ska_lover wrote: »

What kind of person, after spending their own life starving and living in such bad conditions, would deliberately get themselves pregnant? They have failed their kids before they are even born.

And what have the men done? And often to/with more than one woman/several children?

fluffnutter

Education innit. Many women in developing countries simply don't appreciate there's an alternative. Plus who's going to pay for all this contraception? We get it free on the NHS. I doubt many developing countries have the luxury of shelling out free pills.

Derivative

The problem here is with thinking about what you would do if put in a situation.

But your own viewpoints have been formed through decades of living in Western society, with access to education, shelter, not needing to force your children to work in order to survive.

If you were born into a third world country, your viewpoints would not have been the same as they are today.

What do you say to a woman who has been raped due to lack of law enforcement, and has no ability to get an abortion?

WolfSong2000

Speaking as someone who has some limited experience in this area, it's a horrifically complex issue. As others have pointed out, families living in poverty need large families to ensure the survival of the family overall. This is a symptom rather than a cause, though. Surely the real question is why the situation is so bad that even by 3rd world standards, more children than average are dying?

Let me give one example...you guys have probably heard of Somalia, right? It's a failed state...no proper government (they have a transitional federal government at the moment), issues with piracy and terrorism and famine. It's not good...just north of Somalia, however, is a small country called Somaliland. These people share the same culture, language and religion as the people of Somalia, but their country is peaceful, democratic and has no issues with terrorism or piracy. or famine for that matter, despite the fact that Somaliland has no rivers and Somalia has two.

I just wanted to illustrate how complex these issues are. Also, if you want to get into human cruelty, start taking a look at female genital mutilation. About how the first thing young girls know about it is when they are foricble held down and mutilated (often without anaesthetic), then have their legs bound for a week so they cannot move. Not to mention the side-effects of the procedure, which can be horrific and permanent.

As I said...the issues are many and complex (don't get me started on foreign aid!!!). A lot of people have a lot of preconceptions as a result, but there is a lot of info out there. It's just a case of taking the time and initiative to seek it out, recognise that it's often partisan and some of it should be taken with a pinch of salt, and then make up your own decisions .

fluffnutter

It's an incredibly important question to ask though. People shy away from it for fear of being culturally insensitive or overly Western in their thinking. But the UN deems the single biggest factor in keeping a country poor is excessively high birth rates. This they attribute to a poor focus on educating girls/women. If you want to drag yourselves out of the third world, then educating your women and, as a result, decreasing your birth rate is the single most important thing you can do.

darkpool

one thing i recently found out about third world aid is that Dadaab refugee camp (the biggest in the world and the one you see in the news) has been in existence for 20 years!!

Something like a third of the camp's population was born there. I always thought these camps were temporary affairs, but it seems the UN builds them and the refugees never leave.

WolfSong2000

fluffnutter wrote: »

It's an incredibly important question to ask though. People shy away from it for fear of being culturally insensitive or overly Western in their thinking. But the UN deems the single biggest factor in keeping a country poor is excessively high birth rates. This they attribute to a poor focus on educating girls/women. If you want to drag yourselves out of the third world, then educating your women and, as a result, decreasing your birth rate is the single most important thing you can do.

I agree the education of women is imperative to helping developing countries, but personally I'd be inclined to say that lack of any kind of infrastructure - social, political and/or economic tend to be the major issues behind lack of development...hence (in my own personal view) in part why Somalia is considered the world's worst failed state. Again, high birth rates and low education are a problem, but they are not the cause - ground zero, as it were - and until that is adressed, you're wasting your time. It's why I am so furstrated at the international community throwing foreign aid at countries like Somalia. Until the root causes of the instability are adressed, the effectiveness of the aid will be minimal, and indeed in some cases can cause just as many (if not more) problems than it solves.

WhiteHorse

biscit wrote: »

No we're not. It's very occasionally on the news or there's Comic Relief and Sport Relief once a year.

I see at least 2 or 3 adverts every day. And that's only the television.

Crisp_£_note

Thanks for the education so far and to think I nearly didn't ask!

ska_lover

Harry_Flashman wrote: »

Agreed - they need to relocate their mud hut a little closer to the river perhaps?

In all seriousness Harry, that is a top idea.

I mean I wouldn't go and build a house in the middle of the desert...