Egypt’s National Dialogue proposes teaching birth control in schools, universities

CAIRO – 9 August 2023: Egypt’s National Dialogue proposed teaching population and birth control subjects in schools and universities in a closed session on Tuesday.

In an official statement posted on Wednesday, the National Dialogue proposed reformulating the media discourse so as to raise awareness among citizens about the population issue.

The dialogue also recommended drafting legislations to criminalize child labor and child marriage, calling for activating such laws to curb these problems.

Moreover, the participants discussed the importance of putting an executive program for the population issue at the level of the government to achieve balance between population growth and economic development rates.

The government has been promoting awareness among citizens about population growth, with the state viewing overpopulation as one of the obstacles to achieving development.

In June, President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi affirmed that overpopulation has taken its toll on efforts to achieve development, noting that the country Egypt records four births each minute.

According to the Egyptian statistical agency CAPMAS, Egypt’s population has exceeded 105.2 million people.

Late in July, Minister of Health Khaled Abdel Ghaffar said Egypt ranks 14th worldwide in terms of population size and is among eight states where large population growth is expected to occur.