Interview with Donya Aziz, ex-parliamentary secretary for population
KARACHI, Jan 31 2008 (IPS) – At 31, Dr Donya Aziz, was the youngest legislator to join the previous Pakistan Muslim League (Q) government. Busy running for the February elections, Aziz wants to get back into the assembly and resume the work she had to leave off when President Pervez Musharraf clamped emergency rule on Nov. 3, 2007 and dissolved the house.
Dr Donya Aziz Credit: Zofeen Ebrahim/IPS
A medical doctor, with no political background, she has been dabbling in politics for the past five years. She can already claim credit for helping to include sex education in school curricula but wants to get much more done on the population front. Though the going is tough, she enjoys every bit of it.
Pakistan, with an annual growth rate of 2.69 percent, as given in the government s Statistical Year Book 2006, is the sixth most populous country in the world, and the second largest Muslim country after Indonesia. It also has a very young population with a high fertility rate much higher, for instance, than in Bangladesh or Thailand. This young population will soon become adult and come into the reproductive age. Even if there is a decline in average fertility to the reproductive level of 2.1 children per woman by 2020, Pakistan will still have a population of 350 million by 2050, according to the U.N. projections.
Given Pakistan s background of anti-western attitudes, religious radicalism and a complete breakdown of all democratic institutions, talking about issues around family planning, safe sex, sex education, homosexuality and men having sex with men are still no go areas.
Donya Aziz took time out to talk with IPS correspondent Zofeen Ebrahim on how a business-as-usual approach will not help contain the runaway population growth and how her government, began a dialogue among stakeholders to talk about integrating sex education in the school curriculum. IPS: There is much talk about incorporating sex education in school curricula. With growing religious fundamentalism and the nation in the grip of civil strife, where does Pakistan stand in exploring this possibility?
DA: Whichever government comes to power, there has to be unfaltering commitment on this issue. Pakistan currently has a large cohort of young people (10-24 years), making up 60 percent of its population and there is a need to educate the young population. However, talking about curbing the population explosion in Pakistan is still met with much disdain since progeny is still considered bounty from God and stopping it is tantamount to being ungrateful. In the circumstances it is imperative we set aside false notions of cultural modesty and hold an open discourse on such themes. As for us, last year, after much brainstorming, we finally got through the preliminary task of getting the curriculum approved by the government for secondary school.
IPS: So once approved, is it being taught in schools?
DA: It s now with the education ministry and they have to integrate it in the regular curriculum.
IPS: How did you manage to convince the various stakeholders, especially the religious scholars, to agree to include sex education in the curriculum?
DA: It was easy. Our argument was that since a Muslim child should begin learning the Quran at age seven, he should, in effect, know about the facts of life including sexual and reproductive issues and processes then. But because most do not understand Arabic, they don t understand what s written. That left the religious scholars speechless.
However, their underlying concern was that it may not be culturally appropriate. To that, we argued that with media disseminating a deluge of right and wrong information anyway, chances are, that to appease his or her innate curiosity, the young mind would sift from a plethora of avenues available. Not always having access to correct, healthy information, the alternative would lead them to engage in risky and inappropriate behaviour.
IPS: Tell us about your ulema training programme that the ministry has taken up.
DA: Our programme began in 2006 and we trained some 1,000 mosque imams to disseminate information on family planning, including the importance of responsible parenthood, safe motherhood, planned and qualitative bringing up of children etc. at various forums including congregations, Friday sermons and marriage ceremonies. They were made to realise that population and development are inextricably linked. This training programme was a result of the International Ulema Conference the government organised in 2005 in which 23 countries participated. There was a general consensus that Islam did not prohibit family planning or the use of medical and modern techniques to plan your family. Half our job is done if we have the mosque imams on our side. IPS: What would you say has been your ministry s successes?
DA: To increase access to quality reproductive health and family service and reduce mother and child mortality and morbidity, our ministry started a mobile service unit (MSU), which comprises a fully-equipped van, headed by a female physician. This provides free healthcare services (including treatment for sexually transmitted infections, reproductive tract infections) to women in every tehsil (smallest administrative unit of a province). This is a win-win situation as many female doctors don t want to be posted to remote villages; it will also solve the problem of rural women s inaccessibility to seeking healthcare services due to their limited mobility and seeking treatment only by a female physician. In this we bring the doctor and the treatment to the doorstep.
We have also set up male advisory centres at the union council levels. For the last so many years there was no intervention to change the mindset of the men; we d only been talking to women, it was time to involve the men. The latter have no clue how much pain a woman goes through to give birth; or how taxing motherhood can be and how important nutrition is for her and the child. Interestingly, there is a nazim (mayor) in Sukkur (a city in the province of Sindh) who has no qualms about hiding the fact that he got vasectomy done or even promoting the procedure. In his area the number of vasectomies increased from 30 to 300 last year.
IPS: Tell us about the National Parliamentarians Forum for HIV/AIDS of which you were the coordinator?
DA: The National Parliamentarians Forum for HIV/AIDS was formed in 2003 in collaboration with UNAIDS and we have organised four conferences since then. It was ground-breaking learning for the colleagues too as they said they didn t know it was such an important issue. Now, they will be shedding the misconceptions and educate people in their constituency.
IPS: But will they be able to talk about condoms, homosexuality etc?
DA: That is the test and we are treading slowly as it s not easy to talk about such issues. Language is a big barrier, I must say. For now, we ve encouraged them to be in a 10-minute video but they are hesitant, especially with elections here. The idea is to initiate person-to-person advocacy and spread awareness on population and sexual and reproductive health, especially HIV/AIDS, sexually-transmitted infections and reproductive tract infections. They are slightly hesitant, as it s treading on very, very sensitive and taboo subjects. The other reason cited is that they may be laughed at if they talk about condom use, vasectomy, homosexuality etc., instead of promising better education, and healthcare and access to water and sanitation.
Even at our own forum, we ve kind of glossed over these topics as we don t want to shock them.
IPS: As a woman, an unmarried one, was it easy to be a politician in such a male-dominated arena?
DA: I m now over the initial teething pains and have learnt to deal with my male colleagues. I must say being a doctor gave me an edge and I could say a lot with a straight face and get away with it. Once a member of the religious coalition tried to embarrass me by asking me what family planning method I d suggest for men. He wanted me to use the word condom. Without batting an eyelid, I used the medical term latex prophylactic device instead which left him speechless. IPS: Did you meet with much criticism?
DA: I must confess I did, but more than men, there were women from the religious parties who would oppose anything to do with population planning. They would say we have brought in a western agenda that wants to bring a stop to the population growth of Muslims. Ludicrous though it sounds, they even suggested production of nikahnama (Muslim marriage contract) by anyone who wants to buy condoms, to stop promiscuity.