The Government of Kenya, both at the national and county levels, sees population growth as something to worry about, hold workshops over and run programmes to address. Therefore, there are family planning workshops, policies and programmes that draw funds from the Consolidated Fund, county appropriation Acts and development partners. Some of the non-governmental programmes are faith-based; many are not. They all seem to target women mostly, with men getting a mention only rarely. Population control in Kenya is the responsibility of the woman; so says the government, so says the church, so says our civil society sector.
My father never uttered the words "Wewe ni mjinga kama mama yako" or ever state "Wacha kulia kama mwanamke." How could he? My mother managed to obtain three degrees, head a university department and raise three sons without any of them becoming the monsters many mothers of today have to contend with. Not that my father did not play his part, though it frequently seemed to consist of him handing over his wallet and praying that there is a balance for one or two down at the Masaku Bar. My father believes that men and women complement each other, in all respects they are each others equals and partners. One cannot be without the other; the rise of the one is the rise of the other. To him, I believe, the responsibility of controlling populations, if that, rests on both men and women.
Our government, our churches and other faith-based groups, and the civil society industry seem to believe that the responsibility for population control lies mainly with women. This is stupid. First, it remains unclear why population control in Kenya is such a crisis. Even in the middle of a famine, the same government keeps reassuring us that the nation can feed itself; not that it has the potential to feed itself, but that it can actually feed itself. The challenges faced in this goal are related to the poor logistics infrastructure for moving produce from one part of the country to the other. So pressure on meagre agricultural resources is not a sufficient enough reason to limit each family to two children.
Second, the government also assures us that if Vision 2030 is successfully implemented, Kenya will be able to absorb the thousands of graduates being churned out of the growing number of public and private universities. The government calls for positive contributions from everyone, including working men and women. Therefore, the population bulge that Kenya is experiencing right now is not a threat; it is an opportunity for the greater economic advancement of Kenya and should be treated as such, not as a problem to be managed.
Third, all studies show that positive programmes designed to financially liberate women affect population growth trajectories. When women are educated, the higher their education means the later they have children and the fewer children they actually have. Part of the reason is that educated women are likely to have greater confidence in themselves and their place as equals in a family. Their growing financial strength also means that they can choose who their life partners will be; the education of a girl is a financial tool for her liberation, as a person and as a member of the family.
It is that third ground that lays to waste the stupid population control strategy that says condom-use, tubal ligation, vasectomies or chemical birth control should mainly be the responsibility of women. If the government is truly concerned about the effects of the growing population, it should ensure that more and more women are educated, that their education is not just limited to university but takes in all technical fields, that the policies and regulations for job creation or for encouraging entrepreneurship boost women's participation in the economy, and that men are not merely an afterthought in population control. In fact, increasing the economic and financial capacity of women is the only sensible population control strategy.
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