The president of Egypt, Abdel Fatah al Sisiassured that he will seek to implement measures to decrease the birth rate and thus slow down population growth. He pointed as an example to follow the policy carried out in China of the “only child“.
The president considered that “it is there need to be 400,000 births a year“. In Egypt, in 2022 close to 2.2 million births out of a total of 105 million inhabitants.
Before Sisi, the Minister of Health, Khaled Abdel Ghafarhad already spoken on the subject and had emphasized that “Having children is total freedom.”
However, the President did not agree with the statements of his official and noted: “I do not agree with your idea that having children is a total freedom. Give freedom to people who may not fully understand the magnitude of this challenge?” she stated firmly.
The objective of reducing the birth rate has, according to the president, a purely economic purpose. He warned that “the entire society and state of Egypt will pay the price” as the country is going through the worst economic crisis in its history.
China’s “one child” policy
In 18982, China, until a few months ago the country with the largest population in the world, imposed the policy of “only child” to reduce the social and environmental impact that the strong demographic growth was generating. The measure was strictly enforced based on rent penalties or additional payments per family.
However, in 2013 the policy was eased and they made the decision to allow two or three children per family under certain conditions and from 2015 the Government enabled the possibility of having two children for all families.
in may of 2021, the limit passed to three children and in July of the same year all limits were removed.
The Egyptian president based himself on the Chinese example and stressed that they decided to abandon the measure because “they were successful in population control.”
Source: Ambito
