Day MPs spread lies about family planning

The august House in session in February, 1970. MPs made a joke and a mockery of the need to plan families.

By Waweru Mugo

Kenya: Kenya is a country of many firsts. In the 1970s, it had an enviable world record — the second fastest population growth globally! It is claimed it upped this to probably having the highest population growth rate in the world over the next decade.

In the backdrop of this, efforts to reduce the high fertility were greatly hindered by very conservative social views and diehard religious opposition to contraception. It only added to such myths and misconceptions as family planning being the mother of all “imagined” evil — from deformed babies, infertility, damaged wombs and causing cancer to increasing promiscuity.

And from the comfort of their exalted august House, MPs made a joke and a mockery of the need to plan families even as the population ballooned, thus hampering national growth and development. Majority were of the view that a large population is a wealthier one. They spread lies and perpetuated myths or openly showed lack of understanding on the concept.

Martin Shikuku saw in a large population enhanced security for the nation. In what Charles Hornsby, a historian refers to as a typically xenophobic prophecy, Shikuku thundered, “The world war is approaching. Who will fight in the war? We must produce more children…”

He claimed on the floor of the house that family planning pills were wrecking the country and that “birth control has become a danger to our women”. He claimed:  “There are sick women because of these devices and more marriages are getting broken.” This was in October 1973 while contributing to a debate on the Income Tax, that he even wondered why he was being forced to pay dearly for children materials “when I have increased the population of this country through my own sweat”. In his world, it was alright to increase the number of children one had.

His ally, B M Karungaru, the MP for Embakasi termed family planning a “sheer waste of money” and an exercise that led to many divorces. In 1974, while contributing to the Approval of Development Plan 1974/1978, he claimed, “It (family planning) makes our people very loose because once our women know that they are free from the chances of being pregnant, they may start having illicit affairs” and that “if you go to the High Court today, you will find a lot of cases of divorces and some of these cases have been brought about by family planning”.

Minority tribes

And Kwale East MP Kassim Mwamzandi would state that family planning was unnecessary at the time and in his area, people did not believe in it. It was, he said, introduced to only keep the minority tribes minor. “How would the El Molo tribe expand when its population was only about “102 or 112 people,” he wondered. He suggested, “In fact, we should send more men to join the El Molo so that the tribe can increase as much as possible.”

And Agriculture assistant Minister Maina Wanjigi would slam the proposed 4.5 million pounds family planning budget terming the drive as cheating the society. He even claimed that some of the family pills and injection had such adverse effects on young girls that either they would not give birth at all even after they are married and if they did, they would bear three or four babies at a go while “some of them will produce kids with four legs”.

It was in such debates that Kenya lost opportunities for family planning.

Though there were still voices of reason on the contentious debate, the misconceptions and lies on birth control saw the population growth rate shoot to 3.8 per cent in 1979, having risen smoothly from a low of 2.5 per cent in 1948. With high average lifetime fertility per woman on the rise, the population grew from about nine million at independence to about 11 million (1969), 15 million (1979), 21 million (1989), 29 million (1999) and 39 million (2009).

Outside Parliament, rumour mills were on the overdrive on family planning. Even as the Government intensified the family planning drive, bad publicity still lingered. For example, in 1986, rumour was rife that the Government had sent family planning officers to inject children with drugs that would make them sterile. 

It was around the same time that the free milk, Maziwa ya Nyayo programme nearly flopped, as claims were made that it was laced with family planning drugs. Immunisation programmes at the time fared no better as similar claims were made. At one point, a Catholic priest and several other people were arrested and taken to court for perpetuating the rumour that was widespread at the time across Central Province. The then president Daniel arap Moi, who supported family planning initiatives, was at the time angered by such misleading reports.