Forum for Safe Motherhood

Family is at the center of the Pakistani way of life, but many Pakistanis are unaware of their right to Family Planning and its benefits. You First Need to Understand Family Planning A healthy family life becomes a support system for an individual. For a healthy family life, it is important for you to be aware of your right to family planning. Family planning is the practice of taking intervals between births. In Pakistan’s case, Family planning was interpreted by the country’s Supreme Court as a part of right of life , which is guaranteed in the constitution. Family Planning is not Birth Control The right of family planning encourages couples to mutually decide the number of children they will have and when they will have them. It does not encourage birth control or policies that limit the number of children a couple could have like China’s one-child policy. Family planning is also not forced abortions, which are extremely harmful for the mother’s health. Family planning rathe...

Mussolini’s Italy awarded medals to women as an incentive to have more children-future soldiers for its fascist army. China, on the other hand, introduced an aggressive one-child policy in order to ensure its economic success. Throughout human history population planning has been either a war strategy or an economic policy. Fortunately, governments later acknowledged that without a human rights approach, no family planning program or population policy can work. This rights based approach was first adopted in 1968 during the International Conference on Human Rights at Tehran, which stated that “[…] couples have a basic human right to decide freely and responsibly on the number and spacing of their children and a right to adequate education and information in this respect.” This right in its essence is linked to women empowerment and poverty alleviation. It guarantees a woman’s independence to choose how many children she’d have, and when she’d have them. A violation of this righ...

On International Women’s Day, Forum acknowledged and appreciated the invaluable work done by its members for promoting safe motherhood in Pakistan