Family planning in Iran

All you want to know about Family planning in Iran

The Islamic Republic of Iran has a comprehensive and effective program of family planning. While Iran's population grew at a rate of more than 3%/year between 1956 and 1986, the growth rate began to decline in the late 1980s and early 1990s after the government initiated a major population control program. By 2007 the growth rate had declined to 0.7 percent per year, with a birth rate of 17 per 1,000 persons and a death rate of 6 per 1,000. [1]

Contents

History

Khomeini Era and pro-natalism

Following the Islamic Republic family planning cliinics of the Shah were dismantled "on the grounds that Islam and Iran needed a large population."[2] During the Iran-Iraq war between 1980 and 1988, a large population was viewed as a comparative advantage for Iran. Accordingly, Ayatollah Khomeini pushed procreation to bolster the ranks of "soldiers for Islam," aiming for "an army of 20 million."

Although Iran's population boom started before the 1979 Islamic Revolution (in 1976 the fertility rate was 6 children/woman[3]), Ayatullah Khomeini's edict led to an annual population growth rate of well over 3%. United Nations data show that Iran's population doubled in just 20 years — from 27 million in 1968 to 55 million in 1988.

At one point in the 1980s estimates showed that Iran's population would reach 108 million by the year 2006.

Rafsanajani era and decreasing natality

Following the war with Iraq, the death of Ayatollah Khomeini, and taking office of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a sharp change was made in the Iran's population policy. Realizing "the costs of this burgeoning population were going to far exceed its capacity to provide adequate food, education, housing and employment", [4], Iran's government "declared that Islam favored families with only two children", as one historian put it.[5] Iran's Health Ministry launched a nationwide campaign and introduced contraceptives - pills condoms, IUDs, implants, tubal ligations, and vasectomies.[6]

In 1993, Parliament passed even more draconian legislation withdrawing food coupons, paid maternity leave, and social welfare subsidies after the third child. Birth control classes were required before a couple could get married. Dozens of mobile teams were sent to remote parts of the country to offer free vasectomies and tubal ligations.[6]

By 2001, an Iranian condom factory produced more than 70 million condoms a year, "packaged in French or English to suggest that they are imported, available in textures and flavors like mint and banana", according to a foreign reporter.[6] By this time Iran's population growth rate had dropped from an all-time high of 3.2% in 1986 to just 1.2%, one of the fastest drops ever recorded.[citation needed] In reducing its population growth to this level — a rate that is only slightly higher than that of the United States — Iran emerged as a model for other countries that want to lessen the risk of overpopulation. In 2007 Iran's Total Fertility Rate has dropped to 1.71 with a net out-migration of 4.29 ‰ (and population 65 M).

Explaining the change in religious doctrine on population during a birth control workshop in 1995, Deputy Health Minister Husein Malek-Afzali stated "Islam is a flexible religion".[6]

President Ahmadinejad

In October 2006, President Ahmadinejad called for a scrapping of Iran's existing birth control policies and for a baby boom to almost double the country’s population to 120 million. Families should not be limited to two children and women should work less and devote more time to their “main mission” of raising children. A larger population, he is reported to have said, would allow Iran challenge the west. Critics reacted with alarm and said the president’s call was ill-judged at a time when Iran was struggling with surging inflation and rising unemployment, estimated at around 11%. Mr Ahmadinejad’s call for an increased birth rate is reminiscent of a demand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini 1979. The policy was effective in increasing population growth, but was eventually reversed in response to the resultant economic strain.[7]


See also

References

  1. ^ MSN Encarta Encyclopedia entry on Iran - People and Society, CIA World factbook 2007
  2. ^ Abrahamian, Ervand, Khomeinism : Essays on the Islamic Republic, Berkeley : University of California Press, c1993, p.140
  3. ^ Mohammad Jalal Abbasi-Shavazi, Recent changes and the future of fertility in Iran, figure 1
  4. ^ Iran's Family Program is Succeding
  5. ^ Abrahamian, History of Modern Iran, (2008), p.184
  6. ^ a b c d Sciolino, Elaine, Persian Mirrors : the Elusive Face of Iran, Free Press, 2000, 2005 (p.282)
  7. ^ Tait, Robert (October 23, 2006). "Ahmadinejad urges Iranian baby boom to challenge west". Guardian Unlimited. The Guardian. Retrieved on 2007-05-03. "Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has called for a baby boom to almost double the country’s population to 120 million and enable it to threaten the west. In remarks that have drawn criticism, he told MPs he wanted to scrap existing birth control policies which discouraged Iranian couples from having more than two children. Women should work less and devote more time to their “main mission” of raising children, Mr Ahmadinejad said. …Mr Ahmadinejad’s call for a higher birth rate echoes a similar demand by the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini after the triumph of Iran’s Islamic revolution in 1979."

External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_planning_in_Iran"

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