To think this situation in East Africa could be less serious than it is if there was more information about contraception.

[JazzieJeff]

Ive been thinking this over for some time, and I don't want to appear prejudiced, but I don't think I am being. Because after all, so many people say of people who are struggling to live on low wages/benefits in this country 'why are they continuing to have children?'. So really, my point is the same, but in East Africa, people are bringing children into a world where there is a bloody good chance they will starve or die a horrible death from dirty water.

I dont know whether it's a lack of education, or the spread of the Catholic faith in the developing world. However, I'm not sure if either of these validates people continuing to bring children into such a dire situation. I can honestly say that if I was in East Africa, and that was happening to me and I didn't have access to contraception that I would abstain. I really would. I could not bear to allow any child of mine to suffer. Secondly, if it really is the Catholic faith which prevents so many people from using contraception (as is the case in many developing countries), why isn't there more pressure from governments and charities on the Vatican to start putting money up to start paying for all these children? It's not like they're short of cash; how about using some of those funds they use to put gold leaf on the walls to start putting food in children's mouths. Children, that ultimately, they are responsible for. Because this is getting ridiculous. This has happened twice (that I know of in this country) in my lifetime. Either way, AIBU to think that there needs to be a better solution to birth control in these places, be it contraception or abstinence?

Nope Landrover. Still not saying "they" are stupid. No.

And yes I know you don't get it. That's what I'm trying to tell you.

Well said Freudian, I was about to ask the OP myself what personal knowledge she has of any country in Africa, Its people and their culture.

As for charitable aid being damaging because of a lack of knowledge of social and cultural barriers, that is the tip of the iceberg on the damage it causes.

And yes, clean drinking water can be a solution but it has also caused problems. Western aid charities built wells for water to help people who were traditionally nomads and wandered looking for fresh pastures for their cattle to graze on. The wells encouraged them to settle in places that were not able to support much more than a few groups of people. More and more people came with their livestock, the animals grazed the soil which baked into the desert, expanding it. When the next drought hit, the land wasn't able to support the people.

So clean, long term supplies of water have also failed as an aid solution.

Lack of contraception is not causing the deaths in Africa, drought leading to famine is. There will always be droughts on that continent, and thanks to climate change they will probably happen ever more regularly. People die because impoverished countries dont have the infrastructure in place to deal with severe climactic events even although they are predicatable.

A deluge of condoms and a highly unlikely cultural shift, might thoeretically reduce the birth rate and lower the population, however, come the next big drought, that existing and reduced population will still be subjected to the suffering we have witnessed.

In 50 years time, this mythically contracepted reduced population, will also be an ageing population, an aging population with few offspring to help them when the next famine hits. People will still suffer and die, lots of old and sick will die, and yes , many of the reduced number of children will die. Thats what happens in droughts/famines, people starve,whatever the population size.
Droughts will always happen and without provision of infrastructure to deal with water shortage people will die.

You mention the success of the antipromiscuity message in the fight against AIDS in places like Uganda. Strange then that in your OP you seem prepared lay the entire blame for Africas problems at the feet of the Catholic church, who have promoted monogamy ad nauseam. You do seem to be contradicting your own points. Whatever you think of the RCs or the other faith organisations, they are infact there, decade in , decade out, raising money and doing what they can on the ground. You rather ingnorant of the importance of the work these organisations do, they ARE still there when live aid and the big appeals have faded from memory, they just arent very glamorous.

Indeed, they havent made huge changes to the conditions out there, but I shudder to imagine what it would be like if they werent there on the front line. Only govenments can achieve the massive changes you talk about by adressing corruption, debt payments to western banks, war, and all the other issues which mean that there is nothing being spent on making these countries "drought proof" or at least "drought survivable"

Condoms are irrelevant.

Actually ldn, a few years back I went to Djibouti as part of an aid party to deliver rice, flour etc. We saw the devastation. People living by the side of the road in homes built from sticks, with one piece of material that they moved in line with the sun to provide shade. Dead bodies in ditches, decomposing. That isn't even a hand to mouth existence. That's beyond a hand to mouth existence. Once you see people living in this destruction, barely gripping onto life, you realise that more is needed. Not just sacks of food. It felt like we were just appeasing consciences of people in London. I've never felt like such a fucking failure, like such a waste of bloody space. And this was before the current crisis. Without new solutions, without challenging the current methods, I will go back again in ten years and the situation will be the same.

stoning a woman to death is incredibly cruel and done with that intention to kill her and for her to die while suffering adn is enforced by the cruelest regimes

having a large family is not intentionally done to be cruel, you through your western eyes may see it as cruel to the women and children but this is not how they perceive it, going in telling them that they are wrong is exactly where we have gone wrong on so many occasions, education is not the same as preaching western values it needs to come from understanding of their beliefs and values

I used the point of religious groups and their possible influence because I put it across as a point to someone else.

Well, face value I agree. From the safety and comfort of my home it's pretty darn easy to look at starving children and ask why these people have so many....

But it's war and greed that lead these people to starve, it's food mountains and rich men, it's the brutality of war, femiscide and the like that forces these people into refugee camps. It's the rich minority that necessitate a poor majority. I have a food bin full of food....there's enough food in this world to feed each and every person, but no desire to do so.

Exactly fs! that's my point! We need to change the aid formula that's being used. If we just pile in there, the help won't work. Take the example of the wells, etc.

In some villages, despite free contraception, take-up is only 2%. I believe this is down to lack of understanding of social beliefs. We need to work on this, see if we can't massage a kind of understanding.

As someone said before, women being educated has a direct link to contraceptive take up, and smaller, better educated, healthier sects of people.

Crapola yes, there is corruption. But there is corruption everywhere you go. I think the aid that the western world provides needs to change in line with greater social understanding.

It is far too simplistic to blame this issue on one cause and also far to simple to believe that there is one possible solution. However suggesting that because it is complicated we should not bother is beyong selfish.

Whoops beyond!

When has ANYONE suggested that Cadders?

I feel that the OP comes across as a tad arrogant and bear with me why I explain why.

The OP says she would make a different choice from that which East African woman are curently making.

The OP describes the situation in East Africa as extremely grim.

With me so far? I think that the above two statements are true. I also think that the OP is obviously right to identify humanitarian and human rights issues in East Africa.

However, there is a corollary to this. The OP, it could be argued from reading the actual OP, is implying that East African woman have free choices and are making the wrong choices. This is turn, unfortunately, could be held to imply that African woman have therefore brought the horror upon themselves.

I think that posters have been trying to explain that what might be a free choice to the OP isn't that cut-and-dried for woman in East Africa.

I also feel that the OP's talking about East Africa and catholicism in the same post had the effect of making the OP seem less in touch with the issues than maybe she is.

I'm fairly sure the OP will respond to this with a hastily written 'Is it "arrogant" to care about people dying of starvation' so I'm ready for that misreading and misrepresentation of what I'm saying.

Suffice to say we all presumably want to find political solutions to Africa, and blaming Africans (other than Robert Mugabe and his ilk) just doesn't seem fair or useful.

I never suggested contraception was THE answer, just part of a wider package that could exist, fuelled by better understanding of cultural and social issues as a whole. Of course, we're bowling in there all guns blazing to certain places with all our contraceptives sharpened and ready, but it doesn't mean it's widespread enough, or done in the correct way.

but you still want to preach your values on them that they shoudl be using contraception and should have smaller families. we now have a healthcare and benefits system shoudl someone need it that would support us having larger families but we do not because it does not suit our way of life, our values in life, women have other options open to them where they are valued in other way many countries what they value is totally around the family, they do not have these options and they do not necessarily desire these options its seen as alien to them to not want a large family, support network, have their grandparents in carehomes

i am all for education but not for enforcing our values on to other people, we have done this for hundreds of years and caused nothing but misery and destruction of communities

Alright line runner, I have actually already said that some parts of my OP, on reading it back weren't well placed and I have acknowledged that. I'm no expert in writing and I don't pretend to be. However, through the course of this thread I have been informed of lots of new things which I didn't know, which is great. Ive read further into the subject and presented facts surrounding the issues, which suggest that whilst lots of people think contraception is available to a large group of people, it actually isn't. The funding isn't there. The US in $1bn in debt to the UN with fees.

How about the Pirates in Somalia giving some of the $111 million dollars that they been payed in ransoms from shipping companys to help their own people and the warlords and tribal leaders doing things to help?

You never see a starving soldier

"Actually ldn, a few years back I went to Djibouti as part of an aid party to deliver rice, flour etc. We saw the devastation. People living by the side of the road in homes built from sticks, with one piece of material that they moved in line with the sun to provide shade. Dead bodies in ditches, decomposing. That isn't even a hand to mouth existence. That's beyond a hand to mouth existence. Once you see people living in this destruction, barely gripping onto life, you realise that more is needed. Not just sacks of food. It felt like we were just appeasing consciences of people in London. I've never felt like such a fucking failure, like such a waste of bloody space. And this was before the current crisis. Without new solutions, without challenging the current methods, I will go back again in ten years and the situation will be the same."

And you think because you went on an 'aid mission' you somehow have personal experience of an African culture? Harldy a ten year ethnographic study now is it.

Plus very self contradictory of you when you also stated earlier that charities who practice such aid giving do not understand the social and cultural situations of the people they think they are helping (while usually making the problem worse).

Sorry OP but even children of African parents who are born here and spend most summers in their parents' home countries do not fully understand their culture's let alone someone who went on an 'aid mission' to be as arrogant as you are being.

You have a very typical eurocentric stance on this situation and cannot see things from the other persons perspective yet are putting forward ways in which they should live their lives in your opinion.

Even I who am part of an African culture, was born in my mothers home country, grew up within her community, eat the food, speak the language, know about my culture and my country's politics and regularly keep up with it would never think to be as personally aquainted with the conditions of my own people as my cousins or family members who live in my home country year round.

Yet you want to think you have some personal experience enough to put forward the comments and opinions you have stated in this thread?

This is why many educated African's resent the arrogant and patronising attitudes of westerners who think they know something about African cultures based on a few personal anecdotes spewed out by aid workers who spent a gap year with 'the poor little African children' and Comic Relief.

JuanShite - erm, because they are pirates and warlords, not social services.

It would be lovely if women had either the choice to use contraception or the ability to get hold of it. Sadly that's not the case for the majority in east Africa. There's no contraceptive pill available for most women. They either can't afford it or can't physically get it. Their husbands won't use condoms and may well not let them have the choice of abstaining. Then there is the risk of been raped by strangers.

Then there are the women who do want more children as children can be an import ant way of getting income for a family. Either by working, helping in the fields or begging.

I used to work in a rural hospital in Uganda and the nearest place to get any form of contraception was a ten hour drive away. So funnily enough the locals didn't tend to use any. It would be lovely though if the govt would make it easier to access contraception. While I was there I went to the local girls school and gave a talk on contraception amongst other subjects. I was quite aware even as I was speaking though that it was a load of bollocks.

This is the same town where I saw a woman who had been gang raped starve to death over a number of days in the hospital where I was based. Because she had been raped her family washed their hands of her. Her pelvis had been broken in the attack so she couldn't get up and in a Ugandan hospital if your family doesn't bring you food the you die.

Yes I had a bit of a rant there, bloody infuriating thread.

Excellent posts LDNmummy. Shall we open the biscuits?

Why is the op getting such hard time?

Have not read the whole thread but it makes sense that a family of 4 will have more food per head than a family of 10. Asssuming they have the same resources of course. They will then be more likely to survive. I would rather have 2 living children than 10 dead ones.

Of course I am aware its not that simple and there are cultural issues but the basic idea is correct. So on a simpified level education and access to contraception would help. It seems that the curent methods are not working anyway. We have not come far since live aid.