Naliaka with 11 of her 12 children.
NAIROBI, KENYA -- Concefta Naliaka is a 48 year-old mother of 12 children.
Born in the Bungoma district in the far Western region of Kenya and married at the age of 16, Naliaka says she had no knowledge of or access to birth control. She says she has always lived with the biblical adage, “multiply and fill the earth” ringing in hear head.
The small grass-thatched shanty that Naliaka’s large family calls home tells the tale of the economic hardship that comes from having such a large family. In Keya – a country with a 40 percent unemployment rate -- the financial realities of raising so many children are grim. Her eldest son Robin, now 28, could not finish primary school because of financial constraints. Now, Naliaka says she struggles to provide her youngest son, Victor, who is just six, with basic needs and supplies.
Her husband, Peter Wekesa, works as a local trader at the nearest market in the town of Chwele. But his primary focus these days is the one acre of land that he farms in order to feed his large family. Wekesa says the food he grows in a year is barely enough to keep the family fed for a few months.
“My elder kids and I have to tend other people’s farms in exchange for food to be able to take care of the family’s food requirements,” says Naliaka as she stirs the porridge that is to be the afternoon meal for the many pairs of eyes that patiently watched her.
Cultural beliefs here prevent women from using family planning methods and encourage large, ever-expanding families. “In this place, children are still regarded as a source of wealth and using any family planning is like committing murder,” Naliaka says.
Wekesa, her 52-year-old husband, earns approximately 1500 shillings per month, or $20 USD, as a trader at the local market. Naliaka says this doesn’t even come close to covering the basic cost of food, shelter and clothing for a 14-member family. It’s no wonder, she says, that education and health care needs go unmet.
Stereotypes Fuel Population Growth
Cultural stereotypes around contraceptives run deep here. Wekesa’s neighbor and brother, Patrick Waswa works at a local coffee factory here. He has two wives and 13 children. (Polygamy remains a factor in why many families are so large.) When asked about contraceptives, he says contraceptives are equivalent to a vasectomy, referring to them as “second knives.” When asked about using condoms, “Am I a prostitute?” he quipped.
On familial, local and national levels, experts are concerned that Kenya’s rapid population growth is hindering economic development and sustainability in the country.
According to the Central Bureau of Statistics and World Bank Development indicators, 38 million people now reside in Kenya, a 30 percent increase in the span of 10 years. A United States Agency International Development (USAID) poverty report released in November of 2009 warns that if this annual growth rate goes unchecked, then Kenya’s population will explode to 82 million people by 2040.
Sources with the Kenya National Population and Housing Census of 2009 say that if the country is going to achieve any of its major goals -- universal primary education, food security, increased healthcare opportunities and a reduction in maternal and infant deaths -- then serious steps to control the population are necessary and overdue.
Family Planning Message Efforts to Increase
In response, the National Coordinating Agency for Population and Development (NCAPD) plans to step up family planning messaging aimed at eradicating the attitudes held by people like Wekesa and Waswa.
“The government plans to increase budgets for family planning campaigns in the next fiscal year to the level where it was in 1980s,” says NCAPD’s media liaison David Kinyua. He is optimistic that such a move by the government will cause fertility rates – now estimated to be 5.5 children per woman -- to drop.
Chief Executive Officer Dr. Boniface K'Oyugi, NCAPD chief executive officer, says it is only by controlling a country’s population that development can be achieved. K’oyugi points to Asian nations that limit procreation in order to meet development milestones.
Many on-the-ground says they are skeptical that messaging alone will change deep-seeded beliefs and ancient cultural practices that prize large families.
