The Egyptian government is declining the support weapon to face the population increase

Hassan Al-Masry - Cairo

Muhammad is a carpenter working to support his family of two sons and four daughters, where he believes, like many Egyptians, the importance of "comfort" (the large number of children), and that childbearing a lot will support him and support for his home and his social and even economic status later.

Muhammad tells Al-Jazeera Net that he is a livelihood man (who works on a daily basis) and earns 50 to 100 pounds per day (from 3 to 6 dollars), and sometimes his family sleeps without dinner due to the poor work opportunities available, which makes it difficult to provide for his family's expenses, especially in Under the current conditions of high prices and poor material return, compared to the requirements of his family.

Although Muhammad has finally started to feel some remorse for his decision to increase childbearing due to economic conditions, increased childbirth is common in the countryside and Upper Egypt governorates, as it is believed that the family in the countryside is based on family and social solidarity that extends for generations, and that children are the best support for the family, and that livelihoods On God.

On the other hand, the Egyptian regime is waging a fierce war against the population increase due to its serious impact on economic and social development, where Egyptian Prime Minister Mustafa Madbouly announced last Friday measures to limit the population increase by limiting the provision of support to only two children, whether through rationing decisions or a solidarity and dignity project.

The Prime Minister stressed the importance of raising societal awareness regarding the issue of overpopulation, calling for the intensification of awareness campaigns from the competent authorities and cooperation between them, and coordination with international bodies to work to achieve successes in this important file.

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi has said on more than one occasion that overpopulation is a threat to development, which made the regime’s government launch family planning campaigns, such as the campaign to reduce fertility announced two years ago in cooperation with the US Agency for International Development, which was allocated $ 19 million to Reducing fertility rates in nine governorates in Cairo, Alexandria, and Upper Egypt within 5 years.

And the government of Mostafa Madbouly also launched the "Your Right to Organize" campaign and the "2 Sufficiency" campaign to encourage the Egyptians to be satisfied with only two children and not have more children.

During the era of the deposed Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, successive governments launched many media campaigns to counter population growth and birth control. In this regard, statements such as "The man is not just his word for the patronage of his home and family", the campaign "Hassanein and Muhammadin" and the "Ask Istirir" campaign.

Great disagreement
Many support the Prime Minister’s decision to limit support to two children to force citizens to reduce childbearing, including the former National Population Council’s decision, Dr. Amr Hassan, who sees the need to limit the population increase in light of the country's weak economic resources, considering that this increases poverty and reduces the return from development, along with Difficult phenomena such as child labor and begging are widespread.

Hassan says in his statements to Al-Jazeera Net that "the reason for the spread of a culture of comfort is ignorance and the weak ability of awareness campaigns in the governorates to reach the people who are attached to procreation."

According to the latest official statistic issued by the Egyptian Mobilization and Statistics Authority, the population of Egypt reached 100 million, at a rate of almost every 17.9 seconds in the past 2019 only, so that the increase would be a million in 216 days.

"The figures announced regarding the population represent a scarecrow, just like the scarecrow of illegal immigration, which the system uses to obtain loans and aid from abroad, in light of the presence of unattended births in villages, governorates, slums, and the spread of other nationalities residing in Egypt," according to Wael El-Nahhas, an economic analyst and financial markets expert.

Al-Nahhas assures Al-Jazeera Net that a campaign of solidarity and dignity obtained last September a grant worth half a billion dollars from the World Bank, under the item of improving living and fighting poverty, and before that in 2014, 400 million dollars were obtained, stressing inconsistencies in statements in light of talking about the existence of spinsterhood. Egyptian society and high poverty rates.

"Countries see the population as a human force that can be exploited to achieve development and invest in support of the national economy, which is not done in light of the administration's deficiencies. In the past, Muhammad Ali, the ruler of Egypt, gathered beggars and taught them trades to produce and the industry flourished at the time, so what did the system do to confront poverty and unemployment? Just talk about birth control. "

"Did the regime consider investing in the manpower owned by Egypt to send it abroad, given the need for trained human hands there?" Al-Nahhas asked.

For his part, Sheikh Muhammad Magdi says to Al-Jazeera Net that he did not respond to the Holy Qur’an verses indicating contraception or birth control and the family, nor did he mention anything that stipulates increased births or prohibits contraception, indicating that birth control is permissible, that is, preventing pregnancy in a time without others, which means Also, "isolation", that is, preventing the man's water from entering the woman’s womb, without pregnancy, which the Messenger has been authorized to permit.

He adds, "The jurists divided into groups, some of whom saw the permissibility of family planning or the so-called isolation, and some of them saw his hatred and some of them were forbidden altogether, and the majority of scholars saw hatred in isolation in general and its permissibility as a condition of the wife's consent."