Family planning weakened

After achieving its momentum in the 80s and 90s, the family planning programme of the country has weakened as the coverage to married women reduced from 38 percent in 1993/94 to 20 percent in 2014, said speakers at a discussion yesterday.

Poor programme planning, management and implementation were the main reasons behind the declining trend, they said at the launching ceremony of Bangladesh Demographic and health Survey-2014 at a city hotel.

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Stating that fewer women have heard about family planning in the last 20 years, Karar Zunaid Ahsan, senior monitoring and evaluation adviser to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, said women's exposure to family planning related contents in the mass media have reduced from 47 percent to 30 percent in 2014. In 2014, only 20 percent of the country's married women said they were visited by family planning field workers in the last six months, he said.

State Minister for the ministry Zahid Malik said women were willing to take family planning measures but the services have not been able to reach them at the right time. He also underscored the importance of shifting the focus on long-acting contraceptives instead of the short-term methods.

Noting that rural women are often shy to go to family planning offices, he said field staff should reach their doorsteps with the services. Child marriage has been a stigma to the country's development. Even the law, which restricts it, is not enough. Only women's empowerment through education can reduce it, he said. He also urged the health workers to raise awareness to increase institutional delivery to reduce birth-time health complications. USAID Director Melissa Jones was present at the discussion among others.