Tuesday is World Population Day but concern about our rapid expansion are irrelevant to refugees in Kakuma camps

By Maureen Odiwour

A group of Congolese women riding on boda bodas in what seems like a convoy towards Kakuma Two Zone Four raise their hands high as they ululate.

At their destination in Kakuma Refugee Camp, which is home to more than 100,000 people from different countries, they join other women singing and dancing.

The women are celebrating a new life; a woman from their home country, Democratic Republic of Congo, has just given birth.

One of the elated women, Rahma Nasibu, says: “It is our tradition to celebrate the birth of a child regardless of whether we know the father or not.”

Many children

The new mother, a 26-year-old single mother, already has four children, explains Nasibu.

At the refugee camp which was established in 1992, the inhabitants from different countries including Somalia, Sudan, Burundi and Congo feel it is an obligation to have as many children as possible to ‘replace’ family members they lost during conflict.

To these women, family planning is something they don’t want to discuss. Most of them don’t use any form of family planning despite many organisations offering the services free.

“Here we can’t advise any woman to control birth because she might have lost everyone in the family during war in her country and feels the family tree might be extinct if she don’t give birth to many children,” says Nasibu, a mother of four.

The Standard met Nafisa Rashid, 33, at one of the free clinics at the camp. Nafisa, an Ethiopian refugee, is pregnant and has low blood pressure.

This means she might suffer from anaemia during birth and has been advised to eat food rich in iron to boost her blood level.

It is her seventh pregnancy. Her firstborn is 18 years old and she has lost two children.

She says she knows about family planning and only tried contraceptive pills once after the birth of her fourth child and quit due to related complications while back home in Ethiopia.

“I had intense abdominal pains and a heavy menstrual flow. My husband was not happy after he found out I had used the method and he threatened to chase me away,” says Nafisa.

Nafisa fled to Kenya last February when her husband was being pursued by the Ethiopian government for something she refused to divulge. When they fled their country, Nafisa and her husband lost each other.

Nasifa says she wants to have as many children as possible.

Overwhelmed

“If I get a man willing to give me more children why not,” says she in a serious tone.

While many people don’t  practise family planning at the camp for religious or cultural reasons, a few others are willing to embrace it.

For example Sudanese Iyan Maker, 37, is overwhelmed with the burden of raising many children and readily accepted family planning.

The reception centre is the first stop where refugees, both registered and unregistered, are housed and cleared before they are taken to the camp.

We find Maker seated outside one of the hosting rooms where she has been living with her eight children for two weeks awaiting clearance to go to the camp.

Maker says she regrets giving birth to many children especially in her current situation.

“No one told us about birth control methods in my village; that is why I gave birth to many children,” she says.

Maalim Khadir, a trader at Mogadishu Market within the refugee camp reveals that his wife has eight children and he would not allow her to use any family planning method.

Divorce her

“I don’t like it. If I find out such a thing, I will divorce her,” he says.

Khadir says that from his textile business, which he has been running in the camp for the past three years, he has been able to fend for his family on top of food provided by humanitarian organisations.

His wife is expecting their ninth child, which Khadir hopes will be a boy since he has “only two boys”.

National Council of Churches of Kenya camp coordinator Raphael Nyabala says generally family planning seems to be low among the camp population.

Nyabala says they don’t force family planning on anyone as their main strategy is dissemination of accurate information on the available options. There are benefits and service delivery sites to enable accessibility.

“Some people argue that by giving birth to many children they are compensating for the lost lives in their war torn countries,” he says.