In the interviews presented here, women from rural areas of some countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America express the desire for more control over their lives and for controlling the size of their families. These interviews were gathered by Perdita Huston, a North American social worker and journalist, who traveled to the rural areas of six developing countries to undertake a special survey for the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA).
TUNISIA
"If the men don't like the change, it is just too bad"
Moufida was sitting in the shade of her small home. She is a grandmother but has no idea of her age.
"In my day women were enclosed within their homes. Now my daughters can go here and there. We didn't get to meet our husbands until we were married. Now we have changed our old habits. Women are free and are just as capable as men. But not the likes of me. I lived like a beast. It is obvious that I'm always left behind, overtaken by the menfolk because of my ignorance. But I'm happy to see other women are not like me now.
I had eight children. But it is much better to have a smaller number because you can feed them better, nurse them better, clothe them well and see they are clean. All the younger women have family planning. I would have done it if it had been available in my time.
If the men don't like the change, it is just too bad. President Bourguiba told us we are free and that we should plan our families. All women are seeking to learn, to go about, to have a life of their own."
SRI LANKA
"She died because the medicine was too strong"
On a tea plantation in the highlands of Sri Lanka, a woman tea-plucker of 45 sat talking. She looked undernourished and spoke in a soft, timid tone. She has always lived on the plantation and never attended school. She started plucking tea when just ten years old.
"My mother had only three children but I find it very difficult to live because I have such a large family: eight children. That's the main difference between my life and my mother's. These days, if people have more than three children, they find it very difficult to make ends meet."
"Do you know any methods of limiting the number of children in a family?"
"I know some women who went out and bought some sort of medicine but it didn't work. Then there was another woman who tried to abort by using another kind of drug, but she died because the medicine was too strong. All I can think about is that if I had been born a man, I wouldn't have to go through all this agony of bearing so many children. I wouldn't have all these problems to face".
These interviews are reprinted from the June 1977 issue of the New Internationalist, 62a High St., Wallingford, Oxon. 0X10 OEE, U.K.
MEXICO
"Some say, you want birth control so you can go with other men".
Maria Louisa has lived her entire life in a small Zatopec Indian village. She is 40 years old, has seven children and doesn't want any more.
"But don't you need children to help you with the field work?"
"No, we would need more land if we had more mouths to feed. If I could go back and choose the number of my children, I would have one or two. Look at me, I look so old; that is because we work so hard with all these children. And there isn't enough food for all of us."
"Do you think the husbands in this village would permit, their wives to control the number of pregnancies?"
"Heavens, no! They say terrible things about women who want it. Some say, 'The only reason you want birth control is so you can go with other men'. Once the radio said, 'Fathers of families, if you want to give your children a good up-bringing, take care of them well and remember that small families live better'. Well, my own brother just laughed. You see, some people are very ignorant".
SRI LANKA
"The man doesn't care. It is not his problem"
Ariya lives in a small fishing hamlet north of Colombo. She is twenty years old and has a primary school education.
"My life is so different from my mother's. She was tied to the house and was dominated by her father and mother like a lot of people here still are. The parents of younger girls must be instructed that if they are given the freedom to come out and work together, they will be better off. It's just like trees growing in the shade. We cannot be held in the shadows.
I'm very much afraid of marriage. My married friends, after a certain time, complain and say they are not happy. They doesn't get along together, because they don't really talk to each other as they should. Most women, once they have a certain number of children, think they should stop. The woman says "Enough!" but the man doesn't care. It is not his problem. The man wants sex and the children continue to come. After a while the woman refuses relations out of fear of having more children. Then the men go and have sex outside.
Men must understand what women's lives are like. They must be taught."
KENYA
"Your never see a man in a family planning clinic."
At a women's agricultural cooperative meeting near Mombasa, five women discussed their opinions of family planning.
"Why do you think people are not accepting family planning?"
"Fear of the medicines and fear of their husbands. There are a lot of fears so it will take more time to catch on. As for the husbands, they couldn't care less. You'll never see a man going to a family planning clinic. Men here believe: Let a woman be free of childbearing and she will go everywhere. They want a woman to have a child every year until she becomes old. But the men are free to go gadding about. So if a woman doesn't keep having children, he will get angry and take another wife".
A second woman added: "The men don't understand that family planning is good because it gives the woman time to rest between pregnancies. They don't care much about that, or about the condition of their children."
And a third: "Our men are very jealous and they are still very powerful. They hate the idea that a woman can speak up or voice her opinion."
EGYPT
"When my daughter gave birth to this girl, he left his wife and remarried".
In one of the small villages in the oasis of Fayoum, sat Rachida, age 66. She said she had raised four children alone because she had been widowed when the children were very young. Today she cared for a grand-daughter whose mother died eight years ago.
"When I was a young girl, there were schools, but girls didn't go to them. My daughters were able to go to school all except the second one who was too pretty. My brother in-law, who looked after the family after my husband's death, said she couldn't leave the house because he was jealous and didn't want other people to see her beauty Now, with my grand-daughter, I can barely find enough for us to eat. I am not able to send her to school."
"What about her father, can't he help?"
"Her father is not good. When my daughter gave birth if this girl, he left his wife and remarried. He said, 'You had daughter - you will have girls - I want sons.' When m daughter died, he never did anything for his daughter. H left the child with me."