Recent studies show…
-if preventive measures not taken urgently
RECENT studies coming out of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) show that on top of everything else, Haiti is fast heading for a population explosion if something is not done urgently to arrest the situation.
“There has been a tripling of fertility since the earthquake, and I’m afraid there is going to be a crisis; this is a troubling trend and we are trying to call the attention of the international community and international actors …,” UNFPA representative to Haiti, Igor Bosc, told reporters last week in Port-au-Prince, ahead of the launch there of this year’s State of the World Population Report.

UNFPA’s Regional Director, Marcela Suazo and Igor Bosc at the launch of the State of the World Population Report in Port-au-Prince last Wednesday. At right are some of Caribbean and Latin American journalists who attended the event. (Photo courtesy of the UNFPA)

By “tripling of fertility,” Bosc meant that the birthrate in post-earthquake Haiti now stands at 12%, where before it was four, an increase of some 8% in just 10 short months. With Haiti’s population closer to 10M at the last count, an eight per cent increase is indeed cause for alarm to an otherwise impoverished nation that has been further brought to its knees by a slew of natural disasters, as this equates to a whopping 800,000 or thereabouts more youngsters to rear, provided that they make it through childbirth.
Bosc was earlier in the month quoted by Unifeed as saying: “…75 per cent of births in Haiti are occurring at home. Unfortunately, with the traffic there is in Port-au Prince, when a woman has to give birth it is very unlikely that she will be able to reach a skilled birth attendant on time. And the birth complications are high.”
Following his ‘fertility’ disclosure, he told the Guyana Chronicle that the figures he quoted were culled from a survey done recently on the state of reproductive health in Haiti, using a sample population of 5000 drawn from those areas most affected by the January 12, 2010 earthquake that took the lives of an approximate 230,000 and rendered another 1.3M or so homeless.
Other indicators the agency has been keeping close tabs on since the earthquake in terms of population dynamics, he said, is the rate of mortality and population displacement. In the case of the former, Bosc said:
“We know that 220,000 people died, unfortunately as a direct consequence of the earthquake, and that doesn’t account for all the other mortality and morbidity related to the post-earthquake environment, which is something we will be studying and shedding light on later.”
In terms of population displacement, Bosc said: “…people after the earthquake immediately left the capital and went to the provinces [but] … within two to three months, they were back. Eighty per cent of those who were displaced are now living in proximity to their former homes, or in the same neighbourhood, which means we’re not here in camp logic, but in an urban logic which means the focus should not be intervened through camps, but by reinforcing urban services.”
Asked about the number of ‘tent’ colonies there are across the country, Bosc, while he did not answer the question directly, said the three areas most affected by the 7.0 magnitude earthquake were Port-au-Prince and Léogâne in the west, and Jacmel in the south-west. “So, in all these areas, population has been affected; that’s where the majority of the population in Haiti is concentrated…,” he said.
The Chronicle has since learnt, however, that there are “about 1,300 ‘spontaneous’ encampments in the earthquake-affected areas,” and another 863 organized campsites. And that’s according to former New York Times foreign correspondent, Barbara Crossette, who helped produce this year’s World Population Report and was there in Haiti briefly, but left before the official launch last Wednesday at the Ritz Kinam II Hotel in upmarket Pétion-Ville, some six miles from Port-au-Prince and the Toussaint L’Ouverture International Airport.
But the agency’s biggest problem now, Bosc said, is that with fertility on the rise, lots of women are going to be giving birth in less than attractive conditions. “… all the health facilities to provide pre-natal and maternity care have been destroyed…,” he said, adding that just 40 per cent of the few left that do provide health care have permanent roofs. “All the other facilities (some 60%),” he said, “are actually tents or temporary facilities,” which might very well be forced to shut shop shortly due to prevailing hurricane weather conditions, among other constraints.
Asked what the UNFPA plans doing to help harness the projected runaway population, Bosc said the agency is but just one of the many players in this situation, but “… what we’re doing is advocating for proper public policy and proper humanitarian response…”
Expanding on this, he said: “What we’re doing first of all is highlighting these facts so that there can be appropriate responses put in place. And those responses have to take place together with the public institutions; it is very important to build on the institutionality of those institutions, as well as the humanitarian actors and civil society and all the NGOs that are in the country.”
As to the likelihood of an increase in STDs (Sexually Transmitted Diseases), given the vicarious living conditions Haitians are now subject to since the ‘quake’ and their proclivity to go for the pill or injections rather than use the condom, and how the UNFPA plans addressing this perceived threat, Bosc said that while their projection is pegged at 1.5 % over the next few years, the jury is still out on that score.
Said he: “… it’s probably going to increase, but we don’t know by how much; it’s very likely that it’s going to increase if nothing is done immediately to address the situation… So that’s why there needs to be an immediate response now: One to address the problem of the coming births, particularly in the months of December and January, and secondly to address the imminence of the increase in the prevalence of HIV/AIDS.”
Before the earthquake, the figure for HIV/AIDS prevalence stood at 1.2%, down from 3.8% among adults aged 15 to 49 at the end of 2005, thanks to an aggressive HIV/AIDS awareness campaign and improved standards in health care delivery. Unfortunately, just a fraction of the population uses the condom, a mere 12%, Bosc said.
But all is not lost, he said. “…there is one important thing; it is important here, in terms of awareness-raising in the population, to try to promote the use of long-lasting contraceptive methods, and the need to use condoms; this is also extremely important.”