Population notes

Daily Times, Pakistan - For a country that shuns sex education on the basis that it erodes moral values, the number of unwanted pregnancies in Pakistan are staggering. According to a 2012 figure by the Population Council, 4.2 million of the nine million pregnancies were unwanted. As much as 54 percent of these resulted in back alley abortions.

Kenya’s poor rural households have defied the well-oiled birth control campaigns to retain their position as drivers of the country’s rapid population growth, a newly released demographic report says. On average, a rural woman has nearly twice the number of children as her urban counterpart while the poorest family in Kenya today has three times as many children as a rich one, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey report.The survey, conducted by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, however shows that the country’s birth rate has dropped from 4.6 children per family five years ago to 3.9 by end of 2014 – mainly driven by a decline in the number of children in rich and urban families.

Faustina Fynn-Nyame, Guardian -  Women in Africa want contraception. Women and men see the importance of making our own choices and determining our own future. It’s not the west telling us to do something.... In my jobs as country director for Marie Stopes in Kenya and Ghana, I have met amazing girls and women whose stories make my heart swell. Women like Miriam who, after having four children one after the other, was at risk of becoming homeless when her husband became too ill to support them. Then she met one of Marie Stopes’ community workers and decided to use a copper IUD to protect her for years to come... Yet 225 million women around the world who don’t want to get pregnant are not using any form of contraception, with some areas much worse affected than others. As a result, every day, around 800 women are dying from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. When a mother dies her children’s best hope for survival dies with her.