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ELITE Vol.1, Issue 32, June 2021 ﺔﻴﺑﺮ #

The Challenges of Implementing

Population Control Policies

Noor Khaled, Freshman

Overpopulation is not surprising in countries that believe Implementing mass media campaigns raise another
in the sacredness and joy of having children. All the challenge: how much would it cost to get this information
cheer and pride of having kids disappear instantly once to reach every nook and cranny? As stated before, a
we realize that these same children might end up living a country with a large rural demographic would find it
rough life in the future as uncontrolled overpopulation difficult to gauge how far the information traveled to
creates pressure on the country’s scarce resources, reach the people. One solution would be teaching
increases pollution levels, hinders economic growth, and teenagers about family planning early on in schools in an
raises living costs. The employment and economic needs objective and comprehensive manner. The campaigns and
of an uncontrollably multiplying population are projects meant to empower women also play a massive
incredibly challenging to meet. A sharp increase in role in normalizing this topic and curbing fertility rates.
population calls for setting population control policies, As women realize more important roles in society, they
and that’s what Egypt’s National Strategy for Population will dedicate more time towards achieving their dreams
Control, or “Two is Enough” project, tackles. While these instead of raising kids for the rest of their lives. Training
policies are necessary, we need to understand some of the and hiring teachers, making sure resources are available,
challenges implementing them may entail. and investing in new projects for women would not only
be expensive, but it will also be time-consuming as we

We begin with addressing arguably the significant need to make sure that everyone is aware of the
policies, namely, raising awareness, educating the public seriousness of the situation.
on the threat of overpopulation, and empowering women.
Two main challenges come with these policies: social Another policy is access to family planning methods,
and financial obstacles. A country like Egypt with a which carries some obstacles. While Dar Al-Ifta, Egypt’s
mostly rural, conservative population would find that premier Islamic Research Institute, announced that using
breaking any hard-set values and beliefs on bearing contraceptives is permissible in Islam, we know that not
children and its benefits would be extremely difficult. We everyone would easily change their deep-rooted religious
might even go as far as to say that people might find any beliefs and positively respond to this. Furthermore, it
discussion regarding topics of limiting the number of would be imposing on people’s religious and personal
children or preventing conception taboo or immoral. freedom if the government was to be stricter about using
contraceptives.

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