Tradition, reproductive rights and fertility trends in Mozambique
By Chambalson Jorge Chambal
In Sub-Saharan Africa, tradition and context play a vital role in the achievement of reproductive rights. There are variations between countries as to what extent they have successfully fulfilled sexual and reproductive health and rights milestones. Reproductive rights are a set of human rights that recognise the ability of individuals and couples to decide freely and responsibly about their sexual and reproductive health. Sexual and reproductive health rights enable men and women to have access to relevant information, empowering them to make informed decisions regarding their own needs, including the use of family planning counselling, its related services, and contraception methods. In Mozambique, implementing sexual and reproductive health practises and rights is challenging since specific policies conflict with the way of life or traditions in rural Mozambique.
According to Jerzy Szacki, the concept of tradition consists of three main standpoints. Functionality, the process of sharing from one generation to another generation a specific value of a given community; Objectivity, the understanding of what and how these values are transmitted; and finally, Subjectivity, the behaviour of a given generation as an agreement or disagreement in response towards the cultural heritage. Szacki’s three standpoints of tradition are observed and can be applicable to the fertility trends (the average number of children per woman) in rural Mozambique. The Government of Mozambique has incorporated in its constitution the right to health and equal access for its citizens regardless of sex and economic status. Public and Civil Society Organizations have collaborated to mitigate the impact of gender norms and other cultural obstacles in the implementation of sexual and reproductive services and rights, such as family planning counselling and contraception methods. Despite this, in the rural area, there was an increment in the fertility rate from 5.8 to 6.6 between 1997 and 2011. Overall, the Demographic Health Survey (2011) illustrated a fertility rate of around 5.9 children per woman in Mozambique.
Many people in rural settings perceive large families as a signal of wealth. In addition, women fear the idea of loss associated with the high rate of under-five mortality. Therefore, numerous children address this fear of ageing without any assistance. This last factor indicates an awareness of the fragility of State social security to address the needs of elders regardless of their contribution during the productive age in the formal and/or informal sector. In addition, the Family Budget Survey (2014) identified agriculture as the principal activity in rural areas and among women. Consequently, fertility is a tool to assist the lack of resources and manpower to operate this activity. It is challenging to advocate and use family planning counselling and contraception methods if they already had a mindset pre-defined to address recurring contextual issues assimilated from one to another generation. It is crucial to consider the complexity of local norms and the degree to which the target group directly or indirectly agree with those norms to prevent unintended consequences of health policies and interventions.
Poverty is higher in rural than urban settings in Mozambique, where an unplanned number of children might negatively affect women. Access to education intersects with gender issues in rural settings when parents decide to have a boy, rather than a girl, attending and completing their studies. Further to this, statistics show that girls’ dropout rates are higher in the event of their attending school, as household skills and fertility are prioritised over their education. In the past, public policies illustrated how much reproductive health and rights weigh women's shoulders more than men. Recently, the government revoked the Ministry of Education guidance (2003), in which all pregnant schoolgirls must attend night classes. In urban and rural settings, society has pressured, directly or indirectly, women. This pressure guided them to perceive maternity as their ultimate goal.
Inevitably, the primary issue in the framework is poverty. Effective policies and laws, including the availability of family planning services and contraception methods, will not produce positive outcomes if the root of the problem is not adequately addressed. Many children result in a lack of opportunity for all of them to attend a school. Women tend to focus on skills desirable in the context they were born and grew up in. To explore the reproductive age, most of them tend to initiate maternity at an early age, leading to other sexual and reproductive health and rights issues such as adolescent pregnancies and early marriages. Parents who are successful in having large families may face a risk of being widowers or widows, and consequently, challenges arise on how to take care of their children. This process creates a cycle of intergenerational poverty in which the ongoing lack of opportunities and limited resources systematically transmit from one to another generation.
‘My body, my choices’ will not be effective without a balanced allocation of power between men and women. Public and Private organisations should not only prioritise the health service delivery approach. The ideal health promotion should advocate setting a bridge between sexual and reproductive health and wealth. Fertility trends are an unintended consequence of poverty. Undoubtedly, this scenario refrains the freedom of women to explore and pursue alternative goals beyond maternity. Tackling reproductive rights and health is still a significant challenge in Mozambique, but progress is slow, steady and discrete. Advancements have been observed towards the inclusion of adolescent girls’ relatives and partners as a target group of sexual and reproductive health promotion within public and private organisation as well as to reach the family planning indicators in the Sustainable Development Goals 2030.
Chambalson Jorge Chambal
A Mozambican researcher with a strong experience in monitoring and evaluation. He has a Master in Population and Development and Licence in Law. He is currently pursuing a MSc. in Applied Health Research at University of York.
His research interest focuses on public policies addressing health issues, with particular emphasis on communicable diseases (HIV/AIDS and Tuberculosis). In his career, he has worked with national and international organizations to address sexual and reproductive health issues, such as family planning and early marriages. He aims to develop a career in which combines public-private partnership using innovative and sustainable tools in resource limited contexts such as Mozambique.