Planning, We
pp. 57-59 · Read in the full issue
And Family
Need-Now
At first glance the New Hebrides seems the last place where a family planning programme is needed. The population density is only 14 per square mile . the soil is fertile and the people don t need to work well. the population superficially looks under con- Panning expert who recently V s ! ted the condominium waxed only in h,s proposals to set up a programme.
One had the impi: ession from the expert that a family planning pro gramme was not of any great im portance in the New Hebrides. But he couldn’t be more wrong. I would like to see family planning move from the bottom to the top of the condominium priority list. The reasons are there— if you look hard enough, Every increase in population makes j t that much harder for the New Hebridean to live off his bounty of nature. In the most heavily populated islands there is already emerging a class of dispossessed people who are having to rely on regular wages for livelihood.
The New Hebrideans in the past have been able to scorn wage-paid
labour; they could always live well in their villages if they took a dislike to paid work. Now in some parts, such as Paama, Tongoa and to some extent, T'anna, they are moving into Santo and Vila because they have to—there is not enough land in their village.
The New Hebrides has one of the fastest rates of population increase in the Pacific. Soon people will come from village to town, bringing whole families, not for a little while, but forever. Slums such as those already to be seen in Vila, will be the result and the problems that go with them.
This dispossessed labour force will soon be a political force to be reckoned with. Already land hunger is the basis of the only dissident political group in the New Hebrides—Nagriamel. In another generation, when the population has doubled, land hunger will no longer be an anxiety, it will be a revolutionary force—unless we in this generation try to limit the population.
Another argument in favour of an urgent family planning programme
is the needs of the women of the New Hebrides, who often have as many as 10 to 15 children. Herbs known to Melanesians are used to cause sterility or abortion, and tradition often requires a man to refrain from sex for as long as a year after his wife gives birth. But these contraceptive practices are dying out as other traditions die.
New ones are needed to take their place.
Dr. Makau Kalsakau, doctor at Vila Hospital and a New Hebridean member of Advisory Council, is anxious to urge the government to establish a programme to explain family planning methods to New Hebrideans.
He is perhaps the only New Hebridean to have understood that freedom of choice for the people of a country is a part of good govern ment. And perhaps he is the only New Hebridean to understand that women have the right to decide how many children they should bear. I wish him luck.