Cambodia's hight birth rate adds fuel to fire

Cambodia's hight birth rate adds fuel to fire

By Matthew Lee

PHNOM PENH (AFP): Cambodia faces a population explosion unless strong measures are taken to educate the largely illiterate population about family planning, according to the United Nations.

If its population growth is not controlled, Cambodia has a bleak future as a beggar nation unable to sustain itself without large infusions of foreign aid, said Vincent Faveau, country director for the United Nations Population Fund.

With the second highest growth rate in the region -- an increase of 2.5 percent each year, 0.8 percent above the Southeast Asian average -- Cambodia will see its population soar from the current 10.3 million to an estimated 19. 7 million by 2025.

Resources to support such an increase are woefully lacking and will be adequate only if Cambodia continues to receive massive international support, Faveau said.

"What we are worried about is the inadequacy of the growth of resources and growth of population," he told reporters in remarks prepared for World Population Day on Tuesday.

"You would be okay if you had large population growth and you had the resources -- food, education -- growing at the same proportion, but this is not the case... With the current growth of population there is a continuous need for international assistance to provide the resources.

"The country will never be sustainable, they have to achieve some kind of balance between population and resources."

Illiteracy and ignorance about contraception are just two of many obstacles Cambodia faces in dealing with its population problem.

A recent survey of 4,600 women found that 60 percent of them could not name a form of contraception, though the same survey found that 90 percent of married women would like to either space their births or stop having children.

Only seven percent of women in Cambodia use a modern form of contraception, the survey showed.

"Millions of dollars have to be spent very year on contraception in Cambodia to meet the needs," Faveau said.

But the move toward educating women about contraception has been hampered by some in the government who say that Cambodia's low population density of only 57 people per square kilometer means there is room for many more children, he said.

"This is a short-term view, because if you accept this view you must provide food, health care, education employment, housing to the number of children that you want to have," he said, adding that even with international aid, Cambodia has had a hard time in that.