Low CPR, early marriage cases reported in rural areas

BY JEAN EYASE:
Over 25 percent of women and girls of reproductive age in Tanzania suffer an unmet need with 1 in 4 women willing to access family planning services.

Unmet need for modern contraceptives is higher in the poorest regions and among the poorest social groups, young women, less educated ones and those live in rural area.

Women in the rural poorest areas have a high unmet need for contraceptives and the lowest Contraceptive Prevalence Rate (CPR). They also have the highest early pregnancies and early marriage cases,” said Dorothy Temu- Usiri, Assistant Representative, Population and Development, UNFPA, highlighting Singida, Kigoma and Shinyanga as the regions with higher cases.

One of the many benefits of investing in family planning and addressing the unmet needs is its significant contribution to the improvements in sexual and reproductive health, including reducing maternal and child mortality and morbidity.

Family planning also advances gender equality by ensuring that women have the ability to plan and space their pregnancies time thus increasing women’s opportunities for education, employment and full participation in the social development activities.

It also alleviates poverty by reducing strain on public services thus governments can easily meet citizen’s basic needs and invest well in education, health and skills for development. This cuts across all the five Millennium Development Goals.

Globally, 222 million women have unmet needs for family planning contraceptives and world leaders have put measures to see to it that these needs are well addressed to improve the health of women and newborns.

As explained during the National Family Planning Conference in Dar es Salaam by Dr. Fatma Mrisho, the Executive Chairperson, Tanzania Commission for AIDS (TACAIDS), meeting women’s needs for contraceptives, maternal and child health care will prevent 54 million women globally from getting unintended pregnancies yearly.

Ake ily planning stakeholders emphasize that youths make a large number of unmet needs as most of them face enormous challenges in accessing reproductive health information including family planning services.

Myths and misconceptions on family planning fear of stigma that is caused by the community and lack of access to prefer family planning methods are some of the reasons to the high number of young girls not accessing services.

Dr. Grace Magembe of AMREF Tanzania shared data on how young people engage in early sex which begs the concern of them accessing family planning services. One in 3 girls in developing countries such as Tanzania marries before the age of 18 and 1 in 7 girls before 15 years.

About 50% and 43% of young women and men have had sex by 18 years (THIMS, 2011/12), the Tanzania Demographic Health Survey, 2010 (TDHS) reveals that 56% have become mothers by age 20, only 12% of women aged 15-19 use contraceptives, 58% and 13% of women and men respectively are married by 20 years and girls age 15-19 are 2 times likely to die from pregnant related causes according to the World Health Organization records (WHO, 2006).” She said.

WHO definitions adopted in Tanzania states that young people is group of those aged between 10-24 years; youth group composed by people aged from 15 to 24 years while adolescents are those aged from 10 to 19 years.

Back to HOME

Posted in: