Sensoa’s international policy adivisor and chair of the SRHR Working Group, Marlies Casier, invited experts to discuss the voluntary nature of family planning at the annual Be-cause Health Conference on taboos in global health. The speakers discussed the troubling history of family planning. They explained how framing of population growth in low and middle countries as a threat to the world continues to drive family planning programmes. This turns women’s fertility into an instrument and leads to the neglect of infertility concerns.
The origins of family planning projects
SRHR programmes and policies worldwide find their origins in Europe’s and US’ elites’ concerns about population control. They were built on a fear of 'exponential population growth: If the population growth of certain groups (read the poor) was not kept in check, there would be a scarcity of resources. This outlook informed coercive top-down policies of population control through forced family planning, abortion and sterilization programmes up until the 1990s. In 1994 a drastic turn was taken at the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo (ICPD). Under pressure from women’s rights groups women’s individual reproductive rights were recognized as human rights and UN member-states agreed to end the harmful policies of population control.
The problem analysis didn’t change – Anne Hendrickx
Anne Hendrickx, policy analyst for Collective People Power for Reproductive Justice explained how Caïro was a first step. The response changed, but the analysis of the problems did not: population and fertility continued to be understood as the drivers of poverty. Big family planning organisations continued promoting family planning as a technical fix to problems of structural inequality.
India’s history with involuntary family planning – Sharmada Sivaram
Sharmada Sivaram, researcher at India’s Population Council, shared the experiences with family planning in India. In the 1970s vertical programmes were in place with forced sterilization programmes and government staff having quotas to fulfill. This led to huge human rights violations. The 1990s meant a clear shift to a rights-based approach. when India moved from a family planning to a maternal health approach. Nevertheless, in certain states health workers continue toreceive incentive-based payments to get women to opt for sterilization.
France’s international family planning policy
Daisy Van de Vorst, Projectmanager WeDecolonizeVUB & CHanGE, inquired into France’s international SRHR policies. These were aimed at limiting population growth in African countries, fearing population growth as a major threat to security, the economy and the environment.This approach instrumentalizes family planning for donor’s interests and disregards the enormous infertility challenges women and couples in African countries face.
Moving from SRHR to reproductive justice?
The speakers made the case for a comprehensive approach to SRHR. This should include a call to decenter fertility reduction in the policy and programming of SRHR. They advocate for a reproductive justice approach. In this framework the emphasis must be put on tackling the systemic inequalities that limit women’s choice and rights over their bodies and their choice to start a family and raise children in a safe and healthy environment.
How to decolonize SRHR was one of the key questions at the annual Be-cause Health conference on tackling the Taboos in Global health. Scholars. Policy makers and people engaged in SRHR programming discussed their experiences in thinking and working differently on SRHR.
Learn more about how we can decolonise SRHR
How to decolonize SRHR was one of the key questions at the annual Be-cause Health conference on tackling the Taboos in Global health. Scholars. Policy makers and people engaged in SRHR programming discussed their experiences in thinking and working differently on SRHR.
Learn more about how we can decolonise SRHR
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