Beyond the Bride Price: Who Decides How Many Children a Woman Should Have?
In Yumbe District, COHERINET is discovering that improving women’s access to family planning and abortion care requires more than just medical provisions; it also requires challenging the deeply ingrained beliefs that influence their reproductive choices.
When cultural expectations shape choices
Our community engagements in Yumbe have revealed a deeply rooted belief that the “bride price” cows or goats given to a woman’s family as bride price should be “multiplied” through the children she bears.
This expectation puts immense pressure on women to have large families often preventing them from spacing their pregnancies or using family planning. It raises a critical question: Should a traditional culture decide if or when a woman has children?
Beyond providing information
The challenge in Yumbe extends beyond access to family planning and abortion care. It is about agency. Women must feel empowered to use family planning services and seek abortion care without fear of judgment, rejection or pressure from their families.
To address this, COHERINET is facilitating community dialogues and masculinity enlightenment games. These activities bring men, women and community leaders together to discuss family planning, abortion care, respectful relationships and shared responsibility. They create a safe space for people to question familiar beliefs and consider how their actions impact access to vital reproductive health services and women’s health in general.
The key lesson is clear: Providing medical information alone is not enough. Communities also need opportunities to reflect on the beliefs that shape everyday decisions about contraception and pregnancy.
Why this matters beyond Yumbe
When women are unable to make free decisions about family planning or access safe abortion care, their health, dignity and future suffer. Men, cultural leaders and religious leaders must actively help challenge these harmful expectations. True progress relies on building relationships based on respect rather than control.
COHERINET’s next step is to assess whether these discussions lead to lasting changes in attitudes. By safely listening to women, we will determine whether they feel empowered to make decisions about family planning and reproductive health without pressure.
Changing beliefs takes time. The real measure of progress is not how many people attend a dialogue, but whether women experience greater freedom and respect in their daily lives including the freedom to decide whether and when to use family planning and to access post abortion care without coercion.
Bride price should never be a reason to control a woman’s body. Every woman deserves to make informed decisions about her family planning and post abortion care, free from coercion.
Support This Vital Work
We are looking for partners and funders to expand community dialogues and masculinity engagement across Yumbe District and beyond. To learn more, partner with us or support this initiative, please send us an email: coherinet@gmail.com