Will African women ever begin using Birth Control?

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MB1810

I doubt African women will ever completely embrace birth control. The use of birthcontrol and condoms may seem logical to you and me (especially with the huge number of deaths due to AIDS), but it goes against many of their cultures.
To add to Heavy D's answer: you have to realise that they measure wealth according to the number of children they have. When they are old they would like know that at least one of their children will be able to care for them. There is also the matter of "labola" which have to be paid to a daughters family, by her boygriend, before they can get married. Accordingly, the more daughters you have the more "labola" you'll receive.

Heavy D 2

In South Africa it works totaly different than the places you mention ! But to answer you question you have to understand the culture of these people first ! These people have so many children because of the high motallity rate in Africa and their children are also seen as their ''wealth'' .Some men will beat their women to death if he finds her using birth control. For them to be married to a woman who can not bare children is a curse !

El Duderino

Maybe if the Pope would say it is ok to use condoms. But he'd rather they all die from AIDS.

It's also the man's responsibility to provide some kind of birth control. there have been campaigns in some countries telling people that they can catch aids from condoms. There needs to be proper education and easy access before they can embrace birth control, and this costs governments in these countries money they don't have. hopefully one day theywill, but i think without the real help from western countries such as the cancelation of foreign debt left behind by corrupt regimes, much of africa will be trapped in this cycle of poverty, and therefore low education.

cheri

Woman all over the world should do that - not just in Africa

Ayanda

You posted in the SA section, I'm African woman and I and many others use birth control. It could help if you find forums involving people from countries you mentioned.

Alf Garnett

You would have to read the pre-colonial history of Africa to understand why they continue to proliferate. Until colonialism Africans suffered from disease and inter tribal wars that kept their numbers to a minimum. After colonialism when they wer civilised and introduced to Western medicines their numbers grew enormously but they still hang on to old beliefs and think that attempts to educate them are an evil conspiracy by the White Man. See also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:AverageIQ-Map-World.png

Ni Ten Ichi Ryu

The November 12, 2007 issue of Time magazine contained an article titled "The Secrets Of Birth Order." based on a recent strudy by Norwegian scientists into the phenomena.

It highlighted the effects birth order have on IQ (with the firstborn often having the highest) and achievement (with firstborns often outperforming their younger siblings).

It also pointed to high birth rates in developing countries. Families in countries that suffer from lack of education; food; money; health care and retirement benefits often have more than one child to ensure the continuation of the family line should disease or injury claim the other siblings and to provide for the parents in the old age - a role many African children often have to fill.

Busi

it could have helped you if you made further research before coming to that conclusion. while newspaper reports could be helpful as a foundation, at least South African government has a website and you could have researched there.

superstar ;)'

well born and raised in south africa, my black american sister while you are reading your paper on the poor people in Africa, you need to bear in mind that most of the contries that you listed you will find that people do not have the education that you do, if thier mothers were not educated about birth control than where do they find the money to equip themselves with this knowledge about birth control.

SAgirl

One thing you should understand about the african culture is when a woman cant get pregnant she is seen as no use to the man so no man will be interested in her. The African men wealth gets determined by how many children they the more they have the richer they are

People living in African is still very much cultural and believes in their for fathers etc

Moonfairy

I don't know about other African countries, but in South Africa people do use birth control and know about it. Those who are very poor and who have a lot of children....well the government give them a certain amount of money per month per child (let's say about R100 per child) and then what they do is, they have more and more children because, the more children they have the more money they will get. They don't realise that they're just making it worse. So if they have 10 children, they get R1000 per month, which is nothing at all if you have 10 children, but for some reason they don't think that way. Compared to other African Countries, South Africa definitely knows about that stuff, but we have our poor areas like everywhere in the world, these people are desperate and would do anything to get more money, they just use different methods I guess, which is not so smart.

â˜†Eleâ˜†

I doubt it.

lady_birdie

why do Africans always outperform Afro/ euroAmericans in education department, and slighlty larger than asians? travel to this country and see for urself, and i bet u wont belive that it is the same "news" that portrays ur kinds as hoochie mamas and jail birds, hustlers etc to Africans.. That why most Africans dont mingle with "Akatas" when they come here.

is it fair? fool, life is never fair.. Why are you trying to sound that America is perfect society? is black american community perfect?

T.I

Listen hear! In South Africa there's no excuse (except religious beliefs) stopping us from using contraceptives. The government provides all types for free. South Africa is kilometers away from Nigeria, Sudan etc.

By the way please rather ask a question when you have facts rather than generalizing.Ta

Edit: By the way if Americans are raised to practice birth control, why is it that you ( America) have the highest teenage pregnancy rate in the "developed" world?! Link http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1123322

ivana s

What type of ignorant sellout are you? Do some research before you post your hatred FOOL!

cakes4africa

Heavy D and MB1810 have given a lot of reasons.
Also, an African man does not LIKE to use condoms. And, an African man sees it as his RIGHT to have sex with any female he wishes. He does not classify this as RAPE. In most of the countries you mention, the people have little access to education. They have even less access to clinics, and have never heard of a gynaecologist and IUDÂ´s. Birth control pills are too expensive for most. These people are lucky when they are offered a so-called 3-month-prevention injection, which has several after effects.
Why donÂ´t you first educate yourself about the LACK of education your African "sisters" have. And get yourself personally involved in such a project, if it means so much to you. ??

Who said we are your brothers and sisters? Anyways you can get condoms and other forms of birth control for free in Africa, just no one likes to use them, and it is not because of religion since a lot of the children are from out of wedlock, sex outside of marriage is a sin, so why would they care about not using condoms when there doing a bigger sin?

Smiley 2

I don't think they know what it is. They don't care.

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