In the News
Senegal's 'Small Revolution' in Family Planning
- 13 October 2011
DAKAR — Talibouya Ka, Muslim leader (imam) of the Omar Kane mosque in the Medina neighbourhood of the Senegalese capital Dakar, encourages his followers to procreate as much as they can. “There are imams who are for family planning, but I am not. I tell worshippers they need to increase the size of the global Muslim family.”
Such attitudes, which used to be prevalent in Senegal, are increasingly rare, particularly in Dakar, midwives and doctors at the Hospital Centre for Health and Hygiene in Medina, told IRIN.
Senegalese families are spacing their children, having fewer, and as a result are increasingly searching for long-term family planning solutions, said Fatou Seck, a midwife at the hospital.
While in 1990 the average woman in Senegal had 6.7 children in her reproductive cycle; in 2009 when the latest statistics were made available, they had 4.8, according to the Health Ministry.
“There is a small revolution going on - husbands and imams who were traditionally against any kind of family planning are slowly starting to accept it,” said Ephie Diouf, 31, a child-minder in Dakar and mother of a five-month-old son.
Read the full story from IRIN
