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.