 The U.S. and North America, do you think that they value African cultures or do you think they look at them as backward and they want to impose their own ideas on us? Do you think that is what is happening? And possibly you might also argue, is it possible that we Africans are also too receptive, we are not critical, we just to keep our kid in our zungu from the West Nachukua to Bila Kulizamaswali, are we critical enough? And as I mentioned to you, I've got two guests to help us with this conversation, so I have already spoken to you about them, but I would like also them to say a word. So welcome to the show. Thank you so much. All right now, so Dr. Teresa Okafor. How are you finding Kenya? Kenya is a lovely city. Lovely country rather. I love Nairobi, I've been here. This is probably my seventh visit. Seventh visit? Yes, and I've gone to the national park. Your food is good, the weather is good, the people are good. My visits to Nigeria are below zero. Oh no. So tell us a little bit about yourself again. Well, I am the African Regional Coordinator for the World Congress for Families and I'm also the Director for Foundation for African Cultural Heritage. African Cultural Heritage, what is that if I may ask? Well, it's a civil society organization and our aim is to promote marriage as a permanent and exclusive union between a man and a woman. And then it's also to protect the innocence of children and it's also to monitor policies to ensure that whatever policies the government is considering is not at variance with authentic human development. Absolutely. Before interrupting you, you said you enjoy the food. Which food particularly? Let me see, let me see. Which food do you enjoy? I've forgotten what it's called. It's made with cornmeal. It's made with ugali. Ugali. Ugali, I like that one. I like that one. No, no. We'll be presented to the same. No, okay. Welcome to Kenya though. Thank you. I keep coming and you always welcome. Thank you so much. Richard, tell us a little bit about yourself. Good evening viewers. I'm Kaketo Augustine Richard and I consider myself a Kenyan of Ugandan extraction. I serve with the Catholic University of Eastern Africa but in this period I'm co-opted on the Kenya Christian Professionals Forum to develop an appropriate response to ICPD 25. ICPD? Yes. So there's a Kenyan here, there's a Nigerian then Ugandan by extraction. So this is really an international talk show today. Now, ICPD, there's a lot of conversation that is going around this. Even though we have called this conversation our show today Youth and Development because that's partly also what ICPD is supposed to represent. Now, first of all, what is ICPD? What is it all about as a conference? Could you help us understand what it is? It's an international conference on population development. All right? Well, it's a conference that when it held 25 years ago we had a few good resolutions and it enjoyed some consensus. But obviously, this 25th anniversary being held in Kenya has been questioned for lacking in transparency, for blocking your parliamentarians in Kenya which I feel is actually an insult because the legislative arm of government, some of its members who are pro-family were blocked from participating, from registering that were never accredited. So it's a bit funny, if not ridiculous. Aside from the fact that it lacked transparency it's also a conference that does not enjoy the consensus of the General Assembly of the United Nations. It does not enjoy the general consensus. What does that mean Richard? For me to explain this we need to know that international law has two levels. We have something we call the hard norms of international law and the soft norms. The hard norms, concrete law of international law is born out of international treaties. All state parties agree to these treaties and they sign them, take them back home, bring them back and ratify them. Anything contained in such a treaty is a hard norm. We have what we call soft norms. Practices, commitments, advisories that are being born out of these international conferences and they can very easily influence how the hard norms are implemented. So ICPD is in that category of the soft norm creating bodies of the international system. It is not fully mandated if I would say to pass law but the decisions they take affect policy no matter what you do. When a technocrat in the government of Kenya is asked to write a policy document on population and development they will pull out UNFPA documents they will pull out all these international conferences they will pull out WHO documents. So that's what makes ICPD a very important conference that it should never have locked out pro-life and pro-family organizations. And you are very much involved with that as you said in families. So let's now go right to this. So what is the danger that has made organizations, NGOs, KCPF, Kenya Catholic, Kenya Conference, Kenya Christian Power Professionals Forum. What has made those kind of organizations stand up and say no to ICPD? Well it's because of some of the issues that have been suggested by the ICPD in the zero draft and some of these issues are antetical to authentic family development. And let me just mention something regarding what he said regarding the laws because you see the General Assembly comprises the United Nations and obviously most of the countries of the United Nations actually decided to boycott the ICPD some of the countries because they were not interested in what is going on because you can see that some of the issues being discussed are actually under the wraps are actually issues that are not favoring the youth and favoring Africa and favoring development. And well he mentioned during our previous conversation that there is one unmet need for family planning. Again this concept unmet need that is being traded around is a concept that does not match health indicators because when you look at the health indicators the health indicators is telling us that life expectancy is actually improving. People are living longer people are better nourished than they used to be so life expectancy has actually improved but on the other hand the population is depleting and in the northern hemisphere I mean western countries the population is fast depleting and so they are bringing up coming up with all kinds of policies supporting families, supporting marriage supporting childbearing so that people can have more children and then when you look at Africa our population is also depleting yeah interestingly our population is depleting in some places in some places where you have a population increase like in Nigeria for instance you also see that there is a correlation between the population and economic growth do you understand so basically some of these points they are making it's just a way of promoting what would create a situation of sexual permissiveness because it's about turning Africa into a dumping ground for contraceptives and also trying to bring in abortion into Africa as a way of cutting down on our population because Denmark has said in BBC that the problem of migration is as a result of overpopulation in Africa and so they would give so much money, it's all monetized it's not just a question of population development it's all about money because at the end of the day the resolutions that they pass a lot of money will go into it and so Denmark is going to give so much money to bring down the population in Africa but Africa is such a large and well resourced continent that when you look at the demographics and look at the data you would say that Africa is not overpopulated I hear you but there's something that you have to ask one of the themes in ISCPD's population as you have argued and development does it not make sense that if there are too many people the resources are not enough for everybody why logically not want to reduce the number of people in a continent in a country so that the resources that are available can be enough for everybody I think we need to think about it a little bit let's make it simple when a baby is born you can look at the baby in two ways you could see a mouth that has come to feed and a body to cloth that would be a liability you would work on making sure you reduce your liability but if you looked at the baby as a new brain coming to think and hands to work that is an asset to invest in so we need to ask that critical question an asset or a liability it's true as you respond think of these in the same context as you are asking the question do you want bring about a life that does not have enough to it that's another question if we take your statement to its absurdity who would say poor people have no business having children would you like to say that I would not want to say that but I don't want extra poor people coming to suffer in a world where they don't have enough to it they don't have medical care so those who are here the poor that are here let's take care of them but how can we ensure at least we don't have any more extra coming in I happen to be a catholic and there is a recent document Laudato Si it is one of the most popular encyclikos right now it was released in 2014 actually the year the pop came to Kenya I think it is paragraph 50 of that encycliko in which the pop says look here anyone who blames the population as the reason the climate is rapidly changing is blaming the wrong thing it is the greed it is the misallocation of resources it is the misprioritization of issues so the human population has to be treated as an asset because as soon as we say that there is such a thing as an unwanted person on this human then we will do terrible things Hitler did them but they did them you wouldn't like that path true so let me not have this conversation with him the next question that I want to ask he has responded to that question and I am still thinking it is a good argument and it holds water but I am saying if the world is that bad there is climate crisis that we are looking into would it not even make sense to reduce the number of people coming into a world that is already breaking down and as a woman would it not be you are the one who gets pregnant you are the one who carries a child for nine months and also stays that child is more dependent on you for the next one or two years would it not be okay that if you do not want to carry a child to term as they argue why not the most important capital is the human capital the people human beings are the most important investments that we can have for the future and that is what makes Africa special because we have a large youth population and this is our investment investing in this youth is our investment for the future because where you have population not reaching replacement levels as is happening in many places where one woman can have one child or just two children that population is not able to replace itself and then what then happens it has diverse impact on the economy amongst other factors because you then have elderly people who are consumers and then you don't have young people who are producers China in case in point obviously and so that can have its impact on the nation's economy ultimately and then if you look outside of Africa you would see many countries like Hungary, Russia Brazil many of these countries doing everything possible including giving women as much as $40,000 6 months maternity leave a car with 7 sitas doing everything possible to motivate women to have more children because they have realized what is happening with a depleting population so I think that over population is really a myth and we have to see human capital as the most important investment and I think that the worst punishment that can happen to any married woman is the fact that she cannot be a child you know that that is the worst punishment because every child is seen as a gift every child is seen as a blessing now you have one side a woman saying as you are saying I can't have a child I would want to have a child but I can't have a child on the other side there is another woman saying well it's my body this one of the things that you have said the ICPD is pushing for abortion another element that they are pushing for maybe it is being used for population control I don't know maybe you can help us understand but the other women were saying well it's my body let me do it with whatever if I don't want to bring a child to Tam why are you forcing me to bring a child to Tam why are you asking me to bring a child that I cannot even support I live in the slum or I live in a very empathetic situation I would like to be a little bit careful about this situation bring a child to life who I can't look after I usually ask are poor people poor because there are many or there are many because they are poor because every time they want to show you that many children are a problem they get you some family that is being battered by weather seriously it flies exactly and they say you see and that's the sasing question because it would seem that if we actually invest in our people we will have fewer children there is a connection between the longer time people spend in school and the number of children they have and what is the relationship negative relationship if someone has stayed longer in school chances are they will have fewer children because they will start childbearing later if they are not in school they are likely to start childbearing earlier and therefore by the time a woman hits menopause if she started early she will have had more children later then it seems that the best way to actually bring down the number of children has to be investing in the people would you say that we should not invest so much time in education or in school is that what you are leading into I am saying other than subsidizing contraception and distributing contraception that is injuring people or offering them abortions injuring them not only physically but psychologically let's try to make sure that childbearing is carried out in a manner that a woman is allowed to be responsible for the parenting process let people choose not to have children because they have actually chosen not to have two not because there is a lot of substance prepared to target the uteruses and ovaries of women your argument is women should not be looked at as if they have a problem by the fact that they can get pregnant and therefore some part of them needs to be eliminated for them to fit in the society is that your argument? society should not push women to a level where they have to choose between parenting and working we lose it should be okay for a woman to say I am off for a whole year to look after my baby and the systems in which we operate the policy should be able to either pay husband well enough to look after the wife and her parenting role all the processes of production of family economics should be guaranteed that this woman can still parent and work from home so that that parenting is not something that women will hate what we've done work now means going out of the work of home and stay out 11 hours that's how we are defining work at this point in time we don't value the work that women are doing in the home and it is the most important work because if the family is the basic unit of society then we need to protect it and to allow it to survive and drive not just survive let me come back to you one of the topics again you are still enlarging is when it comes to the issue of contraceptives someone would argue look they are diseases why not allow people to use these condoms I mean to be safe but to be safe then sorry today in Kenya you are talking about taking a selfie in terms of checking about your HIV status take a selfie so all this is being advocated and it's under ICPD when ICPD is talking about reproductive rights that there is a reproductive right that women should have a choice and actually they call it pro-choice and they call you who are criticizing them anti-choice you are against people making free choices so do you think now in your perspective starting from reproductive rights do you think this is part of the question that I asked that somehow the West does not view African cultures positively because African culture is said to be a culture that appreciates life abortion was not something that was heard of in the traditional African cultures do you think this is an imposition and that's what according to your argument is what ICPD is doing actually it's not peculiar to Africa to appreciate life I think every culture appreciates life and as a matter of fact remember that the West even though Christianity didn't originate from the West in Africa the West brought Christianity to us and so appreciation of life protection of life marriage are principles that we share in common and is common to all religion but let me answer your initial question on contraceptives we need to be extremely careful because you see contraceptives and its promotion is going to bring about a huge health epidemic that Africa will not be able to cope our health resources will be strained under the health epidemic that would come as a result of contraceptive use you see contraceptives will have side effects because they do not protect from sexually transmitted diseases they may prevent marriage they may prevent pregnancy but they do not prevent or protect you from sexually transmitted diseases from emotional breakdown that you can suffer as a result of lack of commitment and the fact of feeling used and in fact more recently we are beginning to understand that contraceptives also has a political implication or even sexual permissiveness that comes as a result of contraceptives also has political implications because the kind of life you've lived may mean that you may not be able to have certain positions in the future as you see it's happening in America so the point I'm making is that contraceptives gives a false kind of security and one has to understand that it is all monetized because by the time Africans becomes the dumping ground for contraceptives the sexually transmitted diseases are going to because with the use of statistics have shown that when you have an increase in contraceptive use you also have a concomitant increase in sexually transmitted diseases now when these diseases and infections afflict us in Africa the money meant for development in Africa will be recycled back to those pharmaceutical industry to buy the drugs that will begin to treat us in Africa and that is if we don't contracept our future and annihilate our continent so we have to be very very careful because fine it is important to plan one's family but does it have to be through contraceptives no should we be offering our youth contraceptives no because there are the truth is and this was a question I threw to a health expert today I said let us for one moment put aside personal preferences put aside religious affiliations or religion put aside culture let's look at the use of contraceptive from a strictly health perspectives I said are contraceptives safe does it not have side effects if it's a condom they will say it's 93% it works 93% condom may reduce the risk but it doesn't eliminate the risk there is still a 30% chance of contracting sexually transmitted diseases and users of condom if they are honest to themselves will tell you that in spite of the condom they still got HIV in spite of the condom they still got pregnant so condom does not is not 100% safe it may reduce it doesn't eliminate and so rather than looking at how to treat the effects we should be looking at the causes of teenage pregnant and see how we can tackle the causes and do the right thing for a continent Richard and Teresa continuing this very important conversation I don't know what's your take on the conversation that's going on and I hope that you have gone to our Facebook page and you have posted what do you think about the conversation that we are having right now and I had asked you to do do you think the U.S. do you think they respect and value African cultures and do you think even ourselves do we respect our own values and cultures or are we quick to imitate we want to look western in the name of development and progress do you agree with what Richard and Dr. Teresa are mentioning are talking about the points that they are passing across so we are going to take a short break and if in case there are some questions