Last week, the heavy noose of population control was placed around the neck of Africa as the Gates Foundation hosted what they called, the biggest family planning event in history with about 3000 attendees.
The International Conference on Family Planning Adis Ababa was a 4-day event which had so many tentacles targeting almost every layer of the African society- women, men, youth, singles, married, professionals, academicians, politicians, celebrities,dignitaries and law makers.
They featured an impressive line-up of key note speakers that included the most influential African movers, shakers and leaders. There were also international and western organisations who were there to support and strengthen the core purpose of the conference – population control of Africa.
Their theme was “full access , full choice”. But the real question the world should be asking at this point is – Access to what? Choice of what? Africa is home to millions of people who have no access at all to basic education or even basic healthcare.
Most of us know or have friends or family members who have no choice in their impoverished situations. And yet, a hand full of people who have access to the greatest material wealth in the world come to us to tell us that what Africans need most is full access to sex without attachments.
Terms like LARC (long-acting reversible contraception) were thrown around a lot during this conference. Emergency (abortifacient) contraception was put on a pedestal. Increasing access to Abortion was also another major area of discussion.
African leaders in attendance were highly encouraged to increase their national budget and schemes for birth control.
Adolescent “friendly” contraception initiatives were also flaunted for the young and supposedly unmarried ones as some of the western speakers and officials described and labelled African societies as “judgemental” in considering sex outside of marriage.
Dearest people of the world, this is absurd! This is twisted and distorted!
To convene in Africa some of the most brilliant minds from around the world only to deliberate and discuss the best ways of getting the most effective birth control into the most remote parts of Africa. To bring in sexual and reproductive rights giants like International Planned Parenthood Federation so as to have them encourage sexual hedonism among our African youth.
To have well known pro-abortion organisations like Ipas speaking on increasing and expanding access to abortion in Africa. To bring in medical “experts” from halfway across the world so as to have them teach, demonstrate and simulate second trimester D & E abortions…
This is heart-breaking for the entire Continent of Africa!
Going through some of these presentations , I was brought to tears for my people who lack and want so much to have access to even the most basic tools of development and all they get is the neo imperialists telling them how great things will be for them if they have “full access and full choice” of the finest contraceptive paraphernalia, tools and devices that will give them unconstrained and unrestrained sexual freedom.
We are thirsty and they give us condoms! We are hungry and they offer us contraceptive pills! We are sick and they offer us the most modern techniques of abortion! We are naked and they lead us into the arms of sexual hedonism! We are imprisoned by poverty and they offer us sexual liberation!!!
Silent tears roll down for Africa in a modern world that can neither see our pain nor hear our cry for help.
We mourn deeply for the destructive seeds of sexual revolution which were sown last week in Adis Ababa.
The pain is almost unbearable to imagine the effects of a sexual revolution on a Continent that is already heavily laden with much human suffering.
And so we weep bitterly. We weep not just for ourselves but for our children who will reap the devastating dividends of this extensive contraceptive project in the future.
Ever since Melinda Gates unveiled and unleashed her extensive and expensive contraception project in Africa more than a year ago, millions of dollars have been spent across the Continent leading to a reactive trend of events like the increased efforts among our African leaders to expand access to contraception, the launching of more population control initiatives in various parts of Africa, the stronger and more insistent push for legalised abortion in many African countries, the increased amounts of government money being diverted (from other development projects) to be channeled into providing birth control and subsequently, an undeniable increase in the usage of artificial contraception in almost all parts of Africa.
And yet the lives of the African women have not improved at all. They may be having more vacuous and sterile sex which is free from conception on every day of the month and every month of the year but they are certainly not better fed, they are not healthier , and they are not even more educated than before Melinda’s project and therefore they are not more empowered. This project has failed the African women on every single note!
I have begged and appealed to Melinda Gates last year when she tripped the switch of population control in Africa and I will readily do it again today with much respect where it is due. The African women deserve so much more than this humanitarian project that promises them nothing more than sexual liberty above all else.
And as you inadvertently flood our nations with birth control pills, injectables, Intra Uterine devices and condoms, our culture is being drowned out by your own, our priority is being replaced by your own, our opinion is being eclipsed by your own and our value is being swallowed up by own.
We highly respect, and dare not define, your western sensitives and values, please mercifully respect our own African sensitives and values.
The African women deserve to stand proudly among the women of the world within the context of their own cultural sensitives and values. They deserve to be recognised in the full esteem and stature of their radiant African femininity, beauty, and dignity that is firmly rooted in a vibrant culture of life and family.
Obianuju Ekeocha
