By Francis Emorut

MPS were last Tuesday divided over the promotion of family planning.
Some members argued that the campaign would create a shortage of labour.

“People in the village see children as a source of wealth and where will the middle class get house-girls and house-boys if you promote family planning?” Busenyi Woman MP Mary Karooro Okurut (NRM) asked.

She argued that the family planning drive was too late for the current generation and advised the advocates to focus on future generations.
The Mityana North MP, Gordon Sematiko (NRM), said children were viewed as a source of wealth.

“The more children you have, the more you are respected and the more powerful you become. We have children as insurance. There is no way you can convince me to have one child when the mortality rate is so high,” he said.

Sematiko noted that it was difficult to promote family planning because most mothers in the villages cannot afford contraceptives.

The legislators were responding to a call by Dr. Peter Ibembe of Reproductive Health Uganda, who asked for more funding for family planning programmes from sh1.5b to sh24b to control population growth.

Ibembe said Uganda’s population would reach 103 million by 2050, up from the current 30 million.

Kiboga Woman MP Ruth Nankabirwa (NRM) noted that some contraceptives were not reliable.
Woman MPs Margaret Babadiri (Koboko) and Oliver Woneka (Bududa) called for the involvement of men in family planning.