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Bangladesh: The producer of world population.
By Vanlalfaka Arakan
Bangladesh is 144,000 square kilometers with
123.1 million people, and if the rapid growth of
its population is not checked, Bangladesh will
face major problems such as health hazards,
deforestation, exhaustion of natural resources,
migration etc. In order to check overpopulation
and bringing up the living standard, family
planning is one of the best options.
According to Prof. Fahmina Ahmed of
Jahangirnagar University, Bangladesh will has
846.1 millions people by 2100 with 5875 per
square kilometers. Unlike its neighboring
countries, Bangladesh is prone to cyclones,
floods, droughts and other natural disasters.
During the last thirty two years, Bangladesh was
devastated by thirty five severe cyclones of
varying intensities. One of the fiercest was on
29 April, 1991 in which 1,40,000 got injured and
2.4 billion worth houses and goods was destroy,
and Bangladesh is now ranks as the world’s most
disaster-prone country (Choudhary). Forestation
is also depleting due to farming and habitation
of the growing people. According to Prof. Ahmed,
“The forest cover of Bangadesh has been reduced
to about 5 per cent of the total area of 22 per
cent over the last forty five years.”
The overpopulation is also causing
large influx of illegal immigrants to its
neighboring countries. According to the Home
Ministry’s statistics of India, there are 15
millions illegal immigrants in India from
Bangladesh (Ved), according to Anand Kumar,
there are around 20 million illegal immigrants.
The Assam governor said that around 6,000
illegal immigrants are entering Assam everyday (Sandham).
If the statement of the Assam governor is right,
there would be 180,000 Bangladeshis a month and
2,160,000 a year. As India is a country with a
variety of languages and people, it is hard to
detect these illegal immigrants. India is now
fencing its border, and Bangladesh government
does not want the fencing. Hence, there has been
regular fighting between the two security
forces. According to Anand Kumar, Bangladesh has
consciously adopted its people immigration to
other countries as state policy. The Tripuris
are now minority in Tripura in north eastern
India because of large illegal immigration to
the state.
Though there are many problems,
Bangladesh does not put family planning as its
priority. The use of contraception among was 8
per cent in 1975, and it increased to 45% (Janowitz
et al). However, the average fertility rate was
6.3 in 1976 and 3.3 in 1994. The majority of
population is also illiterate, and many women
are living in slum areas. They have no knowledge
of family planning. According to O’Donnell,
Bangladeshis take pride in having many children
to provide cheap labors.
Theological teaching influence
people, especially illiterate men and women, and
many people believe that it is against their
religious teaching to prevent conception. The
fact is that the Qur`an does not forbid any
prevention of conception (Akbar). It is some
Ulema who discourage women to prevent themselves
from conception. It is wrong for the Muslim
scholars to use Qur`an as their tool to spread
abortion as a sin just because the Qur`an does
not allow infanticide. As Bangladesh is a small
country with large population, these Ulema
should come forward in family planning.
Though the density of population in
China is less than Bangladesh, China makes its
family planning very effective by making a
couple have one child. The density of population
in China is about 130 persons per square
kilometer whereas Bangladesh is 834 people per
square kilometer. Ms. Bonnie Glick reported to
Congressional-Executive Commission on China that
many Chinese women are happy with two or less
children. In contrast to Chinese, the
Bangladeshis take pride in having many children
for cheap labor. Moreover, many girls marry at
the time of puberty or soon afterward, but the
Chinese girls marry after they are matured
enough to take care of their children. When Ms.
Glick asked a 22 year old Chinese woman the
reason she was not having children, the Chinese
woman said that she and her husband was still
children and they were waiting to be ready for a
perfect birth.
The Chinese government use
tremendous public campaign for family planning.
Ms. Glick says, “The Chinese Government, it
seems to me, through public services
announcement in all forms of media, has
convinced women of the merits of marrying late,
delaying births, and focusing on a ‘perfect
birth’.” If the Bangladeshi government uses
public services like Chinese government, it can
convince people to have fewer children. The
Bangladeshi government does not keep family
planning as a priority. According to O’Donnell,
the initiative of family planning was
twenty-first in the list of government
priorities.
Bangladeshi government should ensure that women
have their fundamental rights. The family
planning can not be effective unless women right
is ensured. Women can not move freely in
Bangladesh, and some women can not visit clinics
or other location where family services are
provided. James Phillips says, “Obliged by
tradition practice of seclusion, women are not
free to travel to clinics or other locations
where services may be provided. Thus, dictates
of modesty and deference to the opinions of
husbands and kin can prevent women from
implementing their individual reproductive
preferences.” In fact, the Bangladeshi
government has an obligation to ensure women
rights because it signed the “Convention on
the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
Against Women 1979 (CEDAW). If these women
have their own rights to decide their wish of
having children, many women might choose to have
fewer children.
The literacy rate among Bangladeshi women is 26
per cent and 49 per cent are men. In
the constitution, education is compulsory to all
children yet the overall literacy is 56.
According to the 1961 Muslim Family Ordinance,
female heirs inherit less than male relatives
do, and wives have fewer divorce right. When the
women are divorced or separated from their
family, they live in poverty and they can not go
get good education. It is hard to implement
family policy without promoting education.
According to Phillips, 48 per cent of women want
more children, and it can be the result of the
high rate of illiteracy among women.
Politically, women have no says in
parliament even though women has been heading
the government since the last six years. As
there is less representative in parliament,
women have no voice in any decision making that
make women more ignorance in different fields.
For example, men are permitted to marry up to
four wives. If polygamy is banned, a family will
has fewer children. For example, if a woman has
6 children, children from four women will be 24,
and it will be hard for a single man to raise 24
children. So, the family will be hard to get out
from poverty.
Thus, the people and the government
of Bangladesh need to follow the Chinese policy
on family planning in order to check the immense
growth of population. If population growing is
not stopped, the government will not be able to
move forward for development, because the
government has to concentrate its federal budget
in the basic needs of its people such as
shelters. It will also deplete its environment
for habitation of the people. moreover, the
large number of immigration to neighboring
countries can cause major conflict as the
Bangladeshi border security forces has been
trying to stop the fencing between
Indo-Bangladesh border by Indian government.
The government should ban polygamy
for the welfare of its people, and work together
with Ulemas (Muslim scholars) in family
planning. Ulemas has great effect on people due
to their religious teaching and it is the
instinct of people to follow their teaching. If
the government stops the immense growing rate of
population, it can maintain the population even
if it will be hard to decrease the population.
Works cited:
Ahmed, Fahmina Ahmed. "Morality of population
control in Bangladesh." Boston
University. 16 Sept. 2005. Paideia
Project. 16 Sept. 2005
<http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/OApp/OAppAhme.htm>.
Akbar, Khalid F. "Family planning and Islam: A
review." The Canadian Society of
Muslims. 16 June 2005. 16 June 2005
<http://www.muslim-canada.org/family.htm>.
Choudhary, A M. "Monitoring and forcast of
disasters in bangladesh using remote
sensing technology." The Geopatical
Resource Portal. 19 Sept. 2005. Asian
Conference on Remote sensing. 19 Sept. 2005
<http://www.gisdevelopment.net/aars/acrs/1994/ts3/ts3003.shtml>.
Glick, Bonnie. "Women's rights and China's new
family planning law." Legislative
Branch Commissioners.
Congressional-Executive Commission on China.
Washington,
D.C, Washigton. 23 Sept. 2002.
Kumar, Anand. "Bangladesh: Fighting over
fencing." South Asia Analysis Group. 8
Apr.
2005. 15 Sept. 2005 <http://www.saag.org/%5Cpapers14%5Cpaper1330.html>.
Janowitz, Barbara, Matthew Holtman, David
Hubacher, and Kanta Jamil. "Can
Bangladeshi Family Planning Program meet
rising needs without rasing costs?"
International Family Planning
Perspective 23 (1997): 116-121. JSTOR.
Bracken
Library, Muncie. 19 Sept. 2005. Keyword:
Bangladesh family planning.
O’Donnell, Charles P. Bangladesh: Biography
of a Muslim Nation. Boulder: Westview
P, 1984.
Phillips, James F., Mian B. Hossain, and Mary
Arends-Kuenning. "The long-term
demographic role of community-based family
planning in rural Bangladesh." Studies in
Family Planning 27 (1996): 204-219.
Sandham, Oken J. "Will illegal migrants
outnumber the people of north-east India in 20
years?" Asian Tribune 30 May 2005.
25 Aug. 2005
<http://www.hvk.org/articles/0605/47.html>.
Ved, Mahendra. "Trade more with Bangladesh."
The times of India 25 July 2005. 25
Aug. 2005 <http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1181155.cms>.
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