Demand for Family Planning Is Rising

The worldwide demand for family planning services is growing because of two trends: the burgeoning numbers of young people entering childbearing age and the increasing adoption of contraceptive use. "Either trend would lead to greater demand," said Toshiko Kaneda, co-author of the Population Reference Bureau's new data sheet, Family Planning Worldwide 2008, "but the two acting together mean there are likely to be huge increases in the future." This PRB data sheet presents information about women, fertility rates, and contraceptive methods used in more than 150 countries. It was prepared by Donna Clifton, Toshiko Kaneda, and Lori Ashford.

The growth will be especially strong in some countries. The new data sheet shows that the number of women ages 15 to 49, the primary audience for family planning services, will jump 30 percent, from 8.9 million to 11.6 million, between 2005 and 2015 in Tanzania, for example. However, the number women using modern contraception will grow more, by 90 percent. In Peru, where use is already high and not projected to increase as much, the number of modern contraceptive users will grow from 3.7 million to 4.5 million, primarily because of population growth.

How sure can we be that these increases will occur? The number of women of reproductive age is easy to project to 2015: They are already born. It is trickier to project the percentage of women using contraception, because that assumes we know what choices women and couples will make in the future. At least two signs suggest contraceptive use will increase. First, many women who do not now use family planning say they would like to control the number and timing of their children. In sub-Saharan Africa, about one-quarter of the married women of reproductive age fall into this category. They could constitute a large population of users if modern contraceptive methods become more easily accessible.

Second, contraceptive use has increased in nearly every country in recent decades, whether they started at a very low level (as with Senegal) or a relatively high level (as with Colombia) (see figure). The magnitude and path of the increase are harder to forecast. The change can be rapid (as in Bolivia), slow (as in Senegal), or rise rapidly and then level off (as in Kenya). While the amount of the increase may not be certain, the number of women who need contraceptive services and supplies is sure to rise because of the concurrent increases in population and contraceptive use rates.

by Mary Mederios Kent

Source: Population Reference Bureau (website http://www.prb. org/Publications /Datasheets/ 2008/familyplann ingworldwide. aspx)

Sulu Reproductive Health Code of 2008

Sulu marks today the launching of its Provincial Ordinance Number 01-2008, otherwise known as “An Ordinance Providing for the Sulu Reproductive Health Code of 2008.”

Ms. Florence Tayzon, UNFPA Assistant Country Representative, who was its guest of honor said “we are happy that finally Sulu had embraced Reproductive Health and the RH code is the living testimony to this.”
The gathering celebrates the first provincial RH ordinance to be passed not only in the Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), but also in the entire Mindanao region said Tayson.

While there are already a good number of municipal and city governments in Mindanao that have successfully passed RH ordinances, it remains a challenge among provincial governments.

“It is UNFPA’s hope that more provincial governments in Mindanao will follow the example of Sulu Province ,” Tayson said.

UNFPA has three major projects in the country Reproductive Health, Population Development Strategies and Gender which all the programs were embodied in the Sulu RH Code.

The UN project is currently working in on ten (10) provinces in the country, namely; Ifugao, Mountain Province , Bohol, Eastern Samar, Masbate , Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao, Lanao Sur, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi.

This is UNFPA’s first visit to Sulu since the program has started in 2005, but because Sulu has always been tainted with conflict, UN security assessment prevented UN workers to visit Sulu.

Ms Tayson said “that our coming here today is an indication that peace is changing and improving”.

Sulu Vice Gov Nurana Sahidulla said “the ordinance aimed at addressing the various reproductive health concerns of the province of Sulu, including but not limited to, high population growth rate (3.15%), high maternal deaths (102 deaths recorded in 2006 due to complications related to pregnancy and childbirth), high infant mortality rate (64 infants below 12 months died out of 11,824 live births), high unmeet need for family planning, unavailability of FP commodities, rising STI cases, and rising violence against women and children (VAWC) cases (89 reported cases in 2006).

The briefing made by Vice Gov Sahidulla to the UN representative aim to make clear the certain need for improved access to contraceptives and other reproductive health supplies in order to help break the cycle of poverty and early deaths of mothers and children.

Services to be offered included in the Code are, adolescent reproductive health (51% of Sulu population are 19 years old and below), PAP Smear for women, digital rectum examination for men, RH Counseling Service, STI and HIV/AIDS screening, women and children protection unit in the Provincial Hospital, family planning programs, comprehensive communication plan for intensified information drive, and establishment of birthing homes and basic emergency maternity and obstetric care health facilities.

Funds for these services shall be earmarked annually from the Provincial GAD Fund (5% of the total GAD fund).

Sulu is one of the ten poorest provinces in the country. In 2000, more than two-thirds of its population is below the poverty threshold (67.7%). Aside from chronic poverty, the province is also wracked by violent conflicts, more recent of which were the series of kidnappings and hostage-taking activities by the Abu Sayaf group. It has been the hotbed of the secessionist movements since the 1970s.
The effect of armed conflict in the province manifests in its mortality pattern. The top 10 causes of mortality in Sulu include legal intervention by firearms, hypertension, diarrhea disease, pneumonia, myocardial infarction, pulmonary tuberculosis, malnutrition, accidents/injury, cancer, and malaria.

IPHO Chief Dra. Farah Tan Omar said Legal intervention by firearms is the top cause of mortality in males while hypertension is the leading cause of mortality in females. On the other hand, the top 10 causes of morbidity include upper respiratory tract infection, skin disease (infection), diarrheal disease, malaria, influenza, pneumonia, parasitism, hypertensive disease, bronchitis/bronchiolitis, and mucus-related disease.

R WE READY FOR THE RH LAW?

Why do the country needs to pass the Reproductive Health Bill?
1. To prevent maternal deaths related to pregnancy and childbirth
About half of all pregnancies in the Philippines (approximately 1.43 million a year)[1] are unintended. The Health Department has noted that Filipino women on average have one child more than they want. According to the UNFPA State of the World Population 2007 report on the Philippines, at least 200 Filipino mothers die for every 100,000 live births, compared to only 17 deaths in the US, six in Canada, four in Spain, five in Italy, 41 in Malaysia, 30 in Singapore, and 44 in Thailand. These preventable deaths could have been avoided if more Filipino women have had access to reproductive health information and health care.


2. To help couples choose freely and responsibly when to have children Knowing which medically safe and effective methods of contraception to use will help couples determine freely and responsibly the number, spacing and timing of their children. This in turn should ensure that all children are wanted and loved and will be properly provided for by their parents.


3. To prevent unwanted pregnancies and reduce abortion rates
Increased access to, and adequate information on, contraceptive methods both natural and modern will reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies, eliminate the need for abortion and prevent maternal deaths.


4. To give rape victims a better chance to heal from their ordeal
Giving rape victims access to emergency contraception (EC) like levonorgestrel can help them prevent unwanted pregnancies. So far, the Arroyo administration has deliberately failed to act upon a request to register levonorgestrel since it was made in December 2006. The denial of access to EC has no basis in medical science. The World Health Organization defines EC as a method of preventing pregnancy. It does not interrupt pregnancy, and is therefore not considered a method of abortion, according to this respected health institution.


5. To prevent early pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases especially among adolescents
The Comprehensive Reproductive Health Care Law recommends that the government provide sex education targeted at girls and boys, with special attention to the prevention of early pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases. According to our obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), which the Philippines ratified more than 25 years ago, adolescent pregnancies present a significant obstacle to girls (when incomes to) educational opportunities and economic empowerment. [2]


6. To free women’s bodies from being held hostage by politics
For the longest time, foreign donors have provided for the contraceptive needs of Filipino women, until the phase-down of condoms in March 2003, pills in 2007, injectables in 2008, and IUDs on a later date, with projections that stocks will run out six months after the last shipment. It is now up to the government to take up the slack. But rather than antagonize the Catholic Church, our politicians toe its line of prescribing only natural family planning methods, no matter how inadequate, unsuitable or ineffective they are to most women.

The administrations policy of refusing to give women access to contraceptive methods that suit them has seeped down to local politics and ordinances, as in Exec. Order No. 003 Series of 2000, which has the city of Manila refusing todispense modern contraceptives in government clinics.

Such policies reflect religious fundamentalism in our laws, where the beliefs of the majority are imposed on others. But shouldn’t government respect plurality in our society and respect the rights of its citizens, no matter what their faith? Why are politicians allowed to sacrifice women’s health to forward their careers? The passage of a Comprehensive Reproductive Health Care Law in the 14th Congress should address these anomalies. Hopefully, our senators and representatives will do their part to help change women’s lives. Or you can write them and make it happen.


Notes:
[1] Singh S et al., Unintended Pregnancy and Induced Abortion in the Philippines: Causes and Consequences, New York: Guttmacher Institute, 2006.

[2] August 25, 2006 Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women Concluding Comments on the Philippines


Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer, March 23, 2008

Article by: Clara Rita A. Padilla, Executive Director of EnGendeRights, Inc.
For more information on reproductive rights, check out www.engenderights. org andhttp://clararita padilla.blogspot .com.

Atienza spoils population-health-environment confab with pro-life bombast

Environment Secretary Jose Atienza Jr stuck out like a sore thumb during last weekend's 3rd Population Health and Environment Conference here when he insisted that the unabated population growth is not the root of the poverty problem of the country.

Atienza in his keynote speech said that the high poverty rate in the country was caused by mismanagement and not by the high population.

Although he agreed that the population, health and environment should be integrated, Atienza insisted that the "sacredness of the human life" should be the main priority.

"You talk about environment, how about the environment of the human body? All life is sacred especially human life," he said to the more than 300 social scientists, policy makers, NGO representatives and scientists who attended the three day seminar at Taal Vista Lodge.

Atienza, who heads the Catholic-backed organization, Couples for Christ, said that other countries are now paying the price for violating the "sacredness of life" because their population is now declining and becoming older.

"We are now the source of manpower for these countries," said Atienza to the very quiet audience. A fourth of the audience instead went outside to smoke or drink coffee.

"It is rare to have your keynote speaker invoking contrary views to what we are advocating," said Ramon San Pascual, executive director of the Philippine Legislators' Committee on Population and Development (PLCPD), one of the organizers of the conference.

"Life is sacred not only when a child is about to be born but when they are born. Sacredness of life also means planning well your family," said San Pascual.

"There is a huge evidence that poverty remains a huge problem because we have failed to come out with a consistent population policy," he added.

"We look into his (Atienza's) view and I look into mine and see what's best," said Cebu Rep. Nerissa Soon-Ruiz, who followed Atienza's speech.

"PHE are scorching issues and I believe that population is the most pressing of these issues," she said.

"Poor Filipinos have big families not because they want to but because they have no access to population services," she said.

She said that the Millennium Development Goals committee, which she chairs in the House is looking into 57 legislative measures, which seek passage.

Richard Skolnick, a director of the US-based Population Resources Bureau, said that 20 percent of deaths in the country are environmental in nature and surely preventable.

He said that he agreed with Atienza that poor governance is partly at fault for the problems in the country but he said that the Arroyo administration should look into the "proper reduction" of the population rate and improve the environmental state of the country.

Skolnick said that he was a high school exchange program in Laoag in 1966 and saw worsening population and environment problems whenever he visited the area.

"There were 33 million Filipinos in 1966. Now we have three times as much," he said.

Source: GMANews.TV

'Filipinos could number 150M if you don't act now'

Even if a two-child policy is enforced by 2010, the Philippine population is expected to reach 150 million because the poor lack information and access to family planning services, according to a nonprofit organization based in Berkeley, California.

"Even if the country reached replacement level fertility (prescribed number of children per family) by 2010, the ultimate population of the Philippines would be 150 million people," said Martha Madison Campbell, founder president of Venture Strategies for Health Development.

According to its website, Venture Strategies is a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the health of low-income people in developing countries by using business mechanisms and building on the power of local market forces.

"There is no time to waste to ensure that the country has enough land for growing food for today's families and also to have remaining forests for tomorrow's children," Campbell said Monday at a press conference at Sulo Hotel to announce the Third National Conference on Population, Health and the Environment to be held in Tagaytay City on March 5-7.

She warned that unless the country gave greater emphasis to family planning, there was a danger of increasing poverty. "Poor people have big families [not] because they want to but because the poor have no access to contraceptives and health education."

She said United Nations demographers in 2002 projected that the Philippine population would reach between 75 and 85 million. But the population overshot the high projection and now stands at 89 million.

Faster than expected
What the figures show, Campbell stressed, "is population growth is faster that anyone expected."

"If there is another delay... if the Philippines waits another 40 years before reaching an average of two children per family, that will mean 100 million more people living in these beautiful islands [compared to] if every family [would] have only two children two years from now," said the political scientist and health specialist from the University of California.

She said that in the 1960s, Thailand and the Philippines each had a population of some 20 million people. Today Thailand has 66 million people compared to the Philippines' 89 million.

"In Thailand, where there is access to contraception, uneducated women use family planning methods just like women with a college education. In the Philippines, where there is no clear national government support for a family planning program, contraceptive use is less -- especially among poor and uneducated women, leading to more unintended pregnancies and larger families," Campbell said.

Risks
International Programs Director Richard Skolnik of the Washington-based Population Reference Bureau said there were many environmental risks to health due to increasing pressure that population growth and migration to cities put on the environment.

"These problems are best seen in the large number of Filipinos who still lack access to safe water and sanitation and who are subjected to indoor and outdoor air pollution," Skolnik said, adding that diarrhea and respiratory infections, especially among poor children, made up 20 percent of the causes of death in the country.

Philippine Legislators Committee on Population and Development executive director Ramon San Pascual said the impact of population growth on the environment cannot be ignored. "A law on population management and reproductive health is urgently needed."
For his part, Conservation International-Philippines country executive director Romeo Trono said: "The question is not what needs to be done, but whether or not government units and agencies, the business sector, support agencies and communities will actually do it with a serious sense of urgency as high priority is required."


Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer, March 4, 2008 page 2.