LAHORE – A brawl erupted at Ali Town near Raiwind when furious gathering were shouting at Bilal Ahmed, a social worker. “How dare you to talk about male contraception? Better to get lost before people lose their cool and kill you as you have committed an unapologetic sin,” the furious mob shouted.
“We are honourable community. We neither share such private matter even with close family members nor in public,” said Hassan Nauman, a 40-year-old person, when asked about sharing information on condom or other contraceptive that are considered as off-limits in social, cultural and religious circles.
Soon after the incident, Bilal vanished from the area to ward off public meltdown. Under some ‘social’ pressure and conservative setting, people deem forbidden (haram) to discuss birth control devices used by males. Even mass communication networks in public and private spheres are avoiding to debate or discuss on the topic.
Through there is some space to discuss women contraceptive measure for spacing child (temporary or permanently) but when it comes to male steps to prevent conception, all hell breaks loose. Surprisingly, married and unmarried folk know about condom, its shapes and somehow utilization. They are displayed and are sold out in pharmacy outlets irrespective of fact how minimum they are used.
Since society terms it steamy matter that foments vulgarity and promiscuousness in sheer contradiction to injunction of their religion, the government has been pulling the plug on various awareness campaigns targeting male groups. Two years back, a 50-second clip to encourage male to use condom in a bid to stop burgeoning birthrate as a part of national drive was launched, some conservative folks upped in arm, branding ad as immoral and unsavory to social fabric.
Even a government regulatory body had to put it off air soon after people poured in more than 1000 complaints in a week. In Punjab, the Population Welfare Department has held in abeyance the next five-year plan 2015-2020 comprising social awakening for the birth control, male contraception and others. Out of 100 million population of the largest province of Pakistan, merely less than one percent use condom, said Dr Amjad, in-charge of the Male Contraception Cell of the department.
“Despite various motivational programmes, making male cognizant of the fact that male contraception is safe and healthy, no headway is sight,” he said. “During conversation with couples, men clearly put birth control liability on the shoulder of women. Venting unwillingness, 99 percent males are found fearing contraceptive methods on ungrounded reasons. Some believe male contraception leads to loss of sexual power and hinder erotic pleasure,” he said.
He said that the department has deputed officers in 34 districts of Punjab to instill sense of protected sexual life. People seldom visit them and most of the time, the male contraception cells bear deserted look, he said. Owing to traditional hush-up on contraceptive measures and lack of sexual education, Pakistan’s population has alarming growth of around two per cent a year and it is likely to increase to 343 million people by 2050.
A random survey lays bare the fact that families predominated by males least bother passing on youth basic information how to spend protected marital life. “Neither our forefathers told us anything nor we should let them know about contraceptive,” said Hammad Akbar, 60. “Who is destined to come to world, will surely come and unnatural interference is tantamount to visitation of God,” he said.
Shying to discuss on condom, Ghalib Ali, 24-year-old businessman at Gulberg, says he knows about condom but lacks knowledge to use it in befitting manner. Though, he is going to wed next week, he says, he has no proper counseling on how to intercourse if desire birth spacing. Myths and fallacies regarding condoms use and vasectomy (permanent male sterilisation) lie in physical, sexual, psychological, socio-cultural and religious settings.
The leading myth amongst male and female youth is that use of both condoms and vasectomy beget impotence in males. So much so, condoms are believed to inflict infections, backache and headache in males. Some youth claim that vasectomy is designed for prisoners only. According to the Health Ministry, condoms are 97 percent effective if used correctly and only 80 percent effective if used in erratic way.
As compared to 30 percent married women who adopt contraceptive, percentage of men using family planning is dismal, a disclosure made by the Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey 2007. Social scientists hold opinion that even with minimum margin, elite and liberal class in urban culture makes some deliberation on condom’s pros and cons.
– Comparison but no comparison –
However, when it comes to talk on male sterilisation (vasectomy), it becomes a taboo for them, they added. People have firm belief that permanent method of contraception is strictly prohibited in their religion. Poor literacy rate and limited knowledge of religious studies are the stumbling block in the way of mass mobilisation of contraception issues.
Pakistan’s literacy rate ranges between 28 to 45 percent in terms of rural and urban stretches and contraceptive prevalence rate (CPR) is 30 percent. Iran’s literacy stands at 85 percent with CPR at 74 percent. With 91 percent literacy, Turkey has 65 percent CPR rate. Literacy rate in Indonesia and Malaysia revolves around 92 percent and CPR rates are 60 percent and 61 percent respectively.
In a country like Pakistan where the family planning decisions are still taken by the men of the houses and the mothers-in-law, particularly in the under-privileged and rural setup where family planning is direly required, the eventual result is more kids than the family can manage and in turn, more children than Pakistan can possibly care for.
The Family Planning and Contraception is Islamic Countries: A Critical Review of the Literature published in the Journal of Pakistan Medical Association shedding light on the smothering issue says that low usage of contraception in the rural areas of Pakistan correlates with the level of isolation, poverty, illiteracy, and to a large extent, religious misinterpretations/misconceptions.
Almost 25 percent of the couples who desired family planning services are not receiving them for a variety of reasons of which religion could be one, especially in the rural remote areas where the media is still not reaching and influencing mind-sets. No wonder that a number of Islamic countries efficiently mobilise local clergy and obtained desired results on family planning programmes.
– Pakistan and Afghanistan –
It is documented that it is mostly ‘religious’ leaders who are against the family planning services and that involving them proactively in community education is extremely important to promote contraception use. Even in Afghanistan, the involvement of communities along with local opinion and religious leaders has made the promotion of the family planning practices in rural areas possible.
Dialogues with the opinion leaders, clinic staff, and household members helped in understanding cultural norms and taboos in order to innovate and test the family planning services in a local context. Updated contraceptive information supported with the Islamic ideology and the mobilisation of the religious leaders helped in achieving the goals of the programme.
– Middle East –
In Iran, decision-makers including ministry officials and religious leaders met with the technical experts and collectively agreed that the country could not adequately feed, educate, house, or provide jobs to its citizens at existing levels of population growth. Faced with these facts, they took action and developed a population policy that was incorporated into the country’s development plan.
Family planning programmes were strengthened as a building block for poverty reduction and the achievement of national development goals. The religious leaders have also played their role in removing fears about contraception methods. This is the most unique and impressive approach adopted by the family planning programmes in Iran.
Social stigmas such as men’s negative behaviours towards permanent contraception were addressed through consultative sessions with the Islamic clerics. In Egypt, the Grand Mufti, the country’s most authoritative interpreter of the Islamic law, issued a religious decree in favour of contraception, thus allowing the establishment of birth control clinics in Egyptian cities.
In Turkey, the religious leaders have a positive attitude towards contraception. The integration of the religious leaders in reproductive health programmes and education on the family planning issues was prioritised to attain desirable fertility rates. On the other hand, Pakistan has already missed millennium development goals (MDGs) set for 2015.
Having recognised that Islam is still the mainstay in the debate on male and female contraception in the country, some religious leaders, scholars, think tanks, and even local clergymen should be disseminating the correct information and actively engaging in advocacy for the promotion of birth spacing diluting the myths and misperception about the male conception to smash the taboo.
Yasir Habib Khan, a senior investigative journalist and fellow of US-Pakistan professional partnership programme for journalists, is writer of this news feature. He can be reached at yaseerkhan@hotmail.com or @yaseerkhann
