Dioro Cissé | January 16, 2025
News Brief
In Kolotomo, Mali, Habibatou Sogoba Diarra, a mother of four and vegetable seller, has found balance between her work and family life thanks to family planning. After experiencing four pregnancies in five years, she struggled to manage her livelihood and care for her children. She says,“When I started using birth spacing methods, everything changed. Now, my children are healthier, and my business is thriving.” Today, she encourages others to embrace family planning for their well-being.
It’s a Thursday, market day in Kolotomo, a village located 25 kilometers north of Ségou in Mali. The market is lively, with vendors bustling to buy and sell goods. Among them is Habibatou Sogoba Diarra, a mother of four who sells vegetables at the entrance of the market. Balancing her busy work as a merchant and raising her children had become difficult, so she and her husband decided space out their pregnancies. Mrs. Diarra says, “Thanks to birth spacing, I can focus on my business and contribute to the well-being of my home.”
She had experienced four pregnancies within five years of marriage. Due to frequent pregnancies, she didn’t have enough time to properly care for her children or manage her business. She says, “It was difficult to take care of young children, do household chores, and manage my business.” Mrs. Diarra explains that each of her last four pregnancies began about three months after she gave birth to her previous child. This closeness of births had an impact on her health and that of her children. The deliveries were difficult, and her children were weaned very early. She says, “I didn’t have time to do anything else. My children were malnourished and frequently ill.”
Despite these hardships, Mrs. Diarra faced difficulties in convincing her husband to space future births. She says, “When I talked about it with my husband, he would get angry and not listen.” The Diarra family follows Muslim traditions. Due to certain misconceptions, contraception is often believed to be forbidden in Islam, making men particularly wary of using contraceptive methods.
To address her situation, Mrs. Diarra sought help from her sister-in-law, Assan Diarra, who serves as the president of the communal office of the Coordination of Women’s Associations and Organizations in Mali, a network that advocates for women’s rights and empowerment. She has participated in several training sessions on family planning from local NGOs and understands the benefits of birth spacing. She organized a conversation between Mr. and Mrs. Diarra to explain the advantages of birth spacing. She says, “I emphasized that religion is not against birth spacing. Then, I made him understand that it would help improve the health of his family and reduce expenses.”
Aly Diarra, Habibatou Sogoba’s husband, thought that using contraception to space births was against Islam and might make his wife unable to have more children. But with advice from his sister, he learned these ideas were not true. He agreed to go with his wife to a health centre to choose a family planning method. Mr. Diarra says, “I’m relieved, and I see that my wife and children are doing better now.”
Mrs. Guindo is in charge of family planning at an organization that works to support community development activities, including improving access to family planning services and reproductive health. She says that contraception – which refers to a range of measures and methods used to regulate fertility – can help reduce maternal, infant, and child mortality and morbidity, particularly those associated with closely spaced or unintended pregnancies. She adds that these methods promote the well-being of women and children, reduce health expenses for families, and allow women to thrive.
Mrs. Guindo says that the law in Mali guarantees the individual right of every person, including women, to freely choose a family planning method without constraint or prior authorization. However, in practice, women have difficulty accessing contraceptive products due to a lack of awareness of the benefits of birth spacing and, especially, unfounded religious beliefs and the reluctance of men.
Spacing births has huge benefits for women. Giving at least two years between pregnancies allows the uterus to recover and the body to prepare for a healthy pregnancy. There are a variety of approaches for family planning. Couples can choose from short-term methods like pills, condoms, and injections, or long-term options such as implants, which are effective for three to five years. Family planning, helps prevent unplanned pregnancies, reduces the risks of complications during childbirth, supports better care and education for children by easing resource constraints, and allows parents to focus on personal and professional development
She believes that effective awareness-raising, both among couples and their in-laws, is essential to promoting birth spacing. For this reason, she encourages couples to visit health centers.
Mrs. Sogoba is pleased with her new situation. She says, “Now, I can avoid closely spaced pregnancies, care for my family, and my small business is thriving.” She encourages other couples to embrace family planning for their well-being.
This resource has been produced thanks to the “HÉRÈ – Bien-être des femmes au Mali” initiative, which aims to improve the well-being of women and girls in terms of sexual and reproductive health, and to strengthen the prevention of and response to gender-based violence in the regions of Sikasso, Ségou, Mopti and the district of Bamako in Mali. The project is being implemented by the HÉRÈ – MSI Mali Consortium, in partnership with Radios Rurales Internationales (RRI) and Women in Law and Development in Africa (WiLDAF), with funding from Global Affairs Canada.