By: Somaya Mandgar
Maryam’s ten children are almost all the same size – you’d be forgiven for thinking some of them are twins. Except none of them are. They were simply born in quick succession. Maryam regrets the speed with which she had them.
“If I had information about contraception methods, I wouldn’t have had my children so close together,” Maryam* says.
Maryam, 39, is expecting her eleventh child in three months and is still breastfeeding her youngest. She says she is not literate, like many of the women in the remote region of Bamyan where she lives, and most of them also do not know about contraception.
“The space between my children is very short. They were born one after another,” she says, adding that none of her children were breastfed for very long. She wonders is this is why many of them are so thin.
According to the previous government’s Ministry of Public Health, Afghanistan is among the countries with the highest pregnancy rate per woman. However, some of the women Rukhshana Media spoke to say these high pregnancy rates are not by design insofar as they don’t have the information to space their pregnancies. It’s more acute in remote parts of Afghanistan.
Maryam walks with some difficulty with the pregnancy setting in. She is also caring for her ten young children, doing housework, and even helping her husband with taking care of the livestock.
“Our life is very tedious. I am busy with housework day and night. At night, I have to milk the cows and sheep. Every day I long to go to bed early at night,” she says. “I usually don’t sleep well when night falls either. Because our children are small, they are often unsettled. I have to be up to calm my children so that my husband does not sleep badly.”
The previous government of Afghanistan had launched many programs regarding family planning. Spacing births was the main goal of those efforts. But it seems that the scope did not reach many remote parts of Afghanistan. Maryam says she has never heard of it or been given information about it. Also, there are strong local beliefs that having many children is a blessing and advantage.
According to Maryam, her mother-in-law insists that having many children means parents are supported in their old age. But Maryam instead feels like she won’t live long enough and wonders aloud if they are worth the pain she has experienced on the more challenging days. Maryam says she already feels like she’s in her old age and she’s only 39.
Marzia, 53, is the mother of eleven children, two of whom have died. She says she never had access to any information about pregnancy spacing or contraception and that’s why she had 11 children.
She believes her two children died essentially because they were poor. One of her son’s had cancer but they could not afford his treatment. He died at 18 years old. Another child died as an infant in the winter.
“He was born during the volatile time of the previous Taliban period (1990s). Because of the cold weather, he froze and died,” she says.
According to a UNICEF report, women’s access to life-saving methods has decreased with the fall of the previous government and the rise of the Taliban. In its latest survey, the global organization said millions of Afghan women are deprived of access to necessary health care.
Golbakht, 45, lives with her six children in the caves of Bamyan. She says that when her neighbours and friends get together and talk, they sometimes discuss the prospect of having many children.
“Every time we sit with the neighboring women, we say together that fewer children, better life,” she says. “But some and some don’t. They say that God will provide food for them.”
Her husband believed that more children was better, but she says she managed to convince him not to have anymore after their last one. She says that having many children and living in poverty is very difficult.
Also a cave-dweller, Najiba is the mother of sixchildren. Her story of how she had a large family is a bit different to the others shared.
Najiba says she always wanted to have a son but her first three children were girls, and they kept trying for a boy. Number four was also a girl. So they planned again for another baby. When she her fifth child was born a boy, her mother-in-law insisted she have another son.
“After him, God gave us another daughter,” she says.
Najiba’s husband passed away four years ago.
“Life has become difficult enough for those who have a breadwinner in the family,” she says. “It is much more difficult for those who are widows like me.”
The cave where she lives barely fits the family.
Nasima Moradi, a family doctor, and a psychiatrist says that the culture of having more children is still strong in Afghanistan. It seems that the same thoughts have doubled during the Taliban regime. “Children in Afghanistan are born by accident,” she says.
*Some names of the women interviewed have been chosen as pseudonyms at their request.
