'You must have children' says Iran to women

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‘You must have babies’ says Iran to women

By Vanessa Baird

blogiran.jpg

Sonia Sevilla

The leaders of Iran want the country to have more people. And they are trying to make new laws to cut contraception, not allow sterilization and discriminate against women who don’t have children.

In the 1990s, Iran was trying to do the opposite – cut the growth in population. But it the plan respected human rights and was a model for the world.

China’s had their policy for one-child only. But the Iranian government campaign from 1989 gave women control over how many babies they had. And it was at the same time as a big increase education of younger women. It worked – Iran cut their fertility rate more than any other country in the world, from 6.6 children per woman in 1970 to 1.9 in 2010.

In New Internationalist Jan/Feb 2010, Farzaneh Roudi (a family planning expert from Iran) talked about the 1990s campaign: ‘People outside Iran think the family planning programme forced women to have less children, but it didn’t. There was a lot of public education about family planning, everyone was talking about it.’

John Seagar (president of the NGO Population Connection) said, about the planned new laws in Iran: ‘These planned new laws are against human rights and will be very bad for the people of Iran. It should not depend on the political decisions of governments if women can get contraceptives and family planning services. It is a basic right to be able to choose when women have children, if they have children and who they have children with.’

We agree.

NOW READ THE ORIGINAL: http://newint.org/blog/2015/03/12/iran-family-planning/ (This article has been simplified so the words, text structure and quotes may have been changed).