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REGISTRAR-GENERAL Tobaiwa Mudede is intensifying his campaign against use of contraceptives.
He launched it on Africa Day while speaking at a church conference in Harare, denouncing birth control strategies as a plot by western countries to keep African populations small, thus retard their development. Mudede is writing opinions in the media promoting his view and has even written a book advancing the same.

“When I looked at other countries that are smaller in size than us, they actually have bigger populations,” he said in his Africa Day speech.

“Why do you want these foreign products? It pains me a lot. Where are you going to get soldiers should there be an aggression? We want police officers, workers, nurses. If you are to ask young people today how many children they have you would hear them responding proudly, ‘just two’. You want to be a super power but you do not want to multiply.”

This week, he escalated his argument urging the government to actually ban contraceptive use. He backed his argument by highlighting the side effects of contraceptives on women.

“These drugs should be banned as they are also being rejected in other countries,” he declared. “They are killing productive women and this is also affecting our population.”

Zimbabwe, according to the 2012 population census, has 13 million people, with a growth rate of 1,1 percent since 2002. The slow growth rate has been criticised for being too low for a developing country like ours.

Mudede is right that larger populations can be good for national economic growth as well as in terms of provision of manpower. It’s correct too that contraceptives cause suffering to some women who are on them, sometimes leading to cancers such as the one that he says killed his niece.

Much of China’s economic growth and Nigeria’s is because of their large domestic markets, 1,3 billion for the Asian giant and 130 million for Africa’s most populous nation. This means that before a manufacturer exports anything from China, he already has something like 1,3 billion potential customers on the domestic market. In Zimbabwe, manufacturers have 13 million potential clients.  Theoretically a bigger market means more potential consumers, more business and greater economic growth.

Contraceptives encourage unsafe sex outside marriage. People can engage in multiple, concurrent sexual relationships and unprotected sex knowing that there is no chance of pregnancy. But the downside is the possibility of a rise in sexually-transmitted infections.  Norplant, Depo-Provera and Nexplanon prevent conception, not STIs.

Mudede has made his negative views clear on the foregoing birth control methods but we don’t know what he thinks about the condom, an important contraceptive.  On this one, it is difficult for anyone, except Catholics, to oppose its use because it is not only a birth control instrument, but also a possible shield against STIs, among them HIV. There is no evidence to show that the condom causes any diseases, therefore is one of the safer contraceptives available, which, prevents disease transmission as well.

But, while contraceptives can frustrate population growth it is not always true that more people translate to bigger markets and better economies. Botswana and Libya (under Muammar Gaddafi), and Namibia have strong economies even though they have small populations. That is as far as economic factors go; we don’t know how the situation is when it comes to provision of soldiers should there be aggression, as Mudede puts it.

Also, we are unsure how China and Nigeria, among other countries achieved large populations. Was it because they avoided using contraceptives or there are other factors?

More people can mean hunger and too much competition over limited resources in poorer countries.

Demographer, Professor Marvellous Mhloyi, who is also involved in the debate, wants an “optimum” population and continued contraceptive use.

“Had contraceptive prevalence remained as low as it was during the colonial regime, or at zero,” she argues, “the 1992 population of 10,4 million would have doubled by 2012, but only grew to 12,6 million. So without contraception, we would be an estimated 20,8 million-strong, with at least 45 percent below 15 years old. The resultant problems include too few places for primary and secondary school enrolment; high unemployment rates; high burden of dependency; no savings, hence no investment or development.”

This is an interesting debate, but to seek a ban on contraceptive use would be too excessive. The best is to leave it to husband and wife to choose whether to use them or not and make informed decisions on the number of children they want to have. On the condom, it is much more than a contraceptive, but a possible barrier against disease.