Niger is a country with one of the highest birth rates in the world. Women have an average of eight children each, a birth rate attributed to a strict adherence to Islam, young marriages and poverty.
Islam is seen as one of the main reasons for Niger's high birth rate. 'To better propagate the faith, the Islamic Oumah must procreate, a lot'". Islam also allows polygamy. "Once they have a little money, men marry at least two women. If each one has eight children, add it up!," said Nagodje Maman, a teacher with two wives and the father of 14 children.
According to the United Nations children's agency, UNICEF, teenage marriages are also another reason for so many births. In Niger, "about 60 percent of youths are under the age of 18. Many girls marry at age 15 or younger, and they can have children up until they are 45 years old," said Jean Lieby, a UNICEF expert in Maradi. And women rarely protest. "It's the men who decide. You risk your reputation if you refuse to give birth," says Zeinabou 13th labor
Two-thirds of the people in Niger live on less than one dollar a day and more than 80 percent subsist on primitive farming. Children become a necessary extra pair of hands to work the land. But the country is in the throes of a food crisis after severe drought and a plague of locusts last year. The UN says that the food shortages affect about 2.5 million people, including 32,000 children with severe malnutrition who face death without the necessary food and medical treatment. Illiteracy is another problem for the former French colony. Less than a quarter of school-age children attend classes.
Over the next 45 years, Niger's population is estimated to reach 55.8 million people, according to a government study published last month.