The People Bomb

[Gregory Hewett]

Post your summaries and reflections here.

[devin]

Devin Wildman
20/11/ 2007 developing nations summery and reflection
Megacities are cities that have a huge population in them and are growing larger every day. The reason for them growing so large is because there are poor people coming from the country side looking for an opportunity to live a longer, better life then what they were in the country side. There is a lack of education amongst the poor. That is why most of them can’t get good enough jobs to help support the family. In Ethiopia there are many families making the wrong decision sometimes because they are either forced into it or they don’t know what they are getting themselves into. There is a lack of money there and so the families don’t have enough to help the families in the poorer areas of the country.
A woman’s place in the household in India is a rough one. They have to cook, clean, make clothes, get water, and many other things. The girls have to do the same. They also don’t get an education so they aren’t as smart as the boys are. The girls are almost ignored in the small tribes and little cities. They are like second class to the boys. The women also have to pay a dowry or tribute to the husband so that he will marry their daughter. Sometimes there is a kitchen fire in the house that the daughter marries. The husband, his sister and mother would take the girl when she was in the kitchen, tie her up, put oil all over her then burn her and say that it was a tragic accident and that they are very sorry that it happened. Then the husband takes the dowry for himself and lives on. The sons are the most wanted. Families would rather have a son then a girl in their family. They can do more work than the girls can and so that is why they are wanted more. If the father or mother dies in a family the son has to cremate them so that they can go to heaven and live on up there. If there isn’t a son in the family then they can’t be cremated and then they don’t live one up there. That is also another reason for more sons than daughters.
There are some things in the world that most people don’t like to talk about. This is called a taboo. These are things that people are ashamed to talk about or are kind of rules to go by. If this is broken then it is said that the whole village and that person is cursed for life.
Babies die every day all over the world. In Nepal some 350 babies die each day because of poor conditions, lack of food, and everything else.
In most countries around the world have really no choice of what goes on in the country. For example in Bolivia there is a high birth rate and because of this the women that give birth to the children most of the time are unable to take care of the child after birth. That is the main reason that many babies die it is also because the family has a lack of money, and they are isolated from modern equipment and technology so they don’t survive long most of the time.
The price of success can be good and bad. In Indonesia there is a ball so to speak for all the tribe leaders around that area. They all come in their traditional dress and are presented by the president himself with a certificate and a reward for using birth control in their village. The capital of Indonesia is growing very fast and has had to move people from the slums to different locations to make room for huge malls and other things that sprang up in the city. They are trying to even the gap between the lower class and the higher class. They are doing this by helping women have less children so they have more money to save for family use. Now the average child per family is now 3 per family.
Machismo factor is happening in Mexico right now. The older men have the idea that they are the boss and that if the wife tries to take over that position then they would have to hit her so that she would understand that he is the boss not her. The local family planners are trying to change the younger men and the newer generation that they don’t have to resort to violence and that they aren’t the boss in the house hold or at least not completely.
Chinas crossroads or Chinas change is a big one that is going on and that is affecting the world. This Chinese New Year 17 million more people were added to the population and millions more will be added this year because it is the year of the monkey. This year is said to be the time that people have children for some reason. This one women that works for the family planning agency is keeping tabs on 546 women that are either married, pregnant, and uses birth control pills. That’s a lot of work but she has got to do it with the fast growing population that they have in China.
China now has a firm hold and control over their population and birth rate of babies. There is a law that says that you can only have one child and no more. If you have more than one child then that can affect your living, job, home, and other things. That is in the city, once you get into the country side families having three or four children. That is because they are following their parents and their parents had large families. They are concentrating on the population of the country too much they need to concentrate more on the economic growth of the country. They are right though in saying that they need to reduce the population in the country, but they don’t only need to concentrate on that alone. Farmland in china is beginning to become scarce because the government will buy it and then make huge companies or industries there and then pollute the air even more than it already is.
Karalla India is one of the poorest regions on the country. Something that is different though is that the birth rate is the lowest in the country, the highest life expectancy, fewest child deaths, highest unemployment rate, highest suicide rate, and more women than men. This shocked the country when this was found out. In karalla the needy get a free hot meal from one of the schools there. Women are as educated as men are and maybe even more. Women go through the same grades as men do. All women here are educated in the rest of India about a quarter of women are educated at all. When communism came to karalla it helped them organize themselves.
Reflection
The world can never be completely flat. I mean it tells right there in black and white there are so many unflateners that are happening in the world today. Some of them have been taking steps in the right direction like karalla and the education of women is going the right way. I think that most of what they are doing is a step in the right direction to what they are working towards. All I can say really is more power to them and hope they get to where every they want to go.

[olivia]

Documentary Reflection

Many countries around the world are suffereing from the the population boom. The countries that are significantly affected are those people in developing countries, where contraceptives are not used efficiently enough to solve this problem. Many Women are faced with many burdens in their life, and infaticide seems to the most biggest problem.
Women in 3rd word nations, cant afford to by constaceptives, so usually, they always fall pregnant. Without the knowlege and understanding of contraception, Who realize that they can not afford another child, women have little choice but to abort their unborn children.
This practice is so common around India, but sadly many woman die each year from unsterolised equipment used in the abortions. Back yard abortions seem to be their only choice, and risking their lives seems to be there only way out of their unwanted pregnencies. Nearly 90 percent of the time, these where the abortions of females.
Because of their situation in life, women claim they cant afford girls, so many women go to sex detection clinics to determine the gender, and if a gril, abortion is a quick option.

Some countries like the Philipines are significantly trying to reslolve these problems, with organisations offering contraceptives to women who cannont afford any more children, or chose not to. T
his seems to be a growing resolution, but in other cases, the Cathlic church describes the determination of life, as a sin, and many women believe that that is so, so the growing number of children in families is growing and growing, with these families being unable to provide the maine necceities that their children need, to survive.
Many governments where trying to resolve there popoulation boom, but in a very decietful way.
Many men and women where tricked in to sterolisation, unable to produce any more children, and this angered many people around India. In some cases, men offerd themselves for sterolization, and they say they understand the situation that their country is in.
IN china, the government has a one child policie law, but in rural farm areas, many families exceed their number of children form 1-3. The government was not in a situation to accept this, so many women where literally taken form their homes, and their unborn child was aborted, of if they werent pregnant, werent taken for sterolization.
It seems that many countries are taking desperate measures to resolve this population boom, but they are not doing it appropiatly.
In India,mexico and many countries around the world, sexism plays a huge part in the day to day life of a man and a women.
In this documentary a boy stated that his father told him that men are leaders of the household. The boy openly said "that if my wife overspeaks me, i can hit her." This is a discusting dislplay of sexism, these children need to understand the equality between both genders. Many school are teaching young students to view males and females ar=s equal, but have stopped trying toconvince older men.

After watching this documentary, I was very shocked at how these women where treated, and also men.
This abortion crisses really upset me. Seeing an unborn, dead child thrown in to a field like rubbish was very horrible for me to understand. I just don’t understand why the government aren't taking more seriouse measures to prevent this from happening.

This population boom seems to be affecting many third world countries, where contraceptives are hard or near impossible to get. Unlike More powerful countries the the U.S or Europe where this is not a problem at all.
Such differences are shocking.
This documentary really opened my eyes, and I am really glad that I know what circumstances many families around the world are facing.

[sanjayvdasari]

‘The People Bomb’ summary:

The documentary, ‘The People Bomb’ was full of a enlightening information. It was all about the growing population of the world, and the consequences that go with it. Population is a major topic nowadays, and it must be addressed, before it is too late. All over the world, families are having children, a lost of them. In Africa, there is an average of six children per family. Having too many children is NOT good for the world, or the family, because having lots of children leads to making sure that they are fed well, well looked after, and are given medical treatment when necessary. All of this costs money, having too many children is usually caused by the lack of family planning, lack of literacy, or lack of voice. Literacy, because it is mostly the people who have a lack of education that don’t know that they need money to maintain a proper lifestyle for their children, but for those who have too many children, will not be able to care for them appropriately, unless they have a lot of money. Voice, that is something that the rural woman lacks unfortunately. Her parents decide whether she goes to school or not; her parents decide whether she will do manual chores, or play; her parents decide who she marries; and her husband now decides how many children they will have together. If the woman has a voice, if she can say “No, I don’t want to marry him!”, or “No, 1 / 2 children are enough!”, or if she is allowed to say anything like that, the worlds population wouldn’t be growing so rapidly at exactly 2 babies every 3 seconds in India.
By this, it can safely be said that Women’s Education is the first step to diffusing the People Bomb. Another main reason for the population explosion is the lapse in the knowledge about contraceptives or condoms. Very few of those who do know about them can get them free, but the others, who do know about them, but are unfortunate enough to not be living in those certain areas where they are given free of cost, must pay, what is to them, a fortune to obtain these birth control items. In India, women are very under-treated, almost like common laborers. ¼ of them die before the age of 15. In these same places, Dowry and child marriage are common practices. The son mania, which is basically the fanaticism of parents for the want of sons and not daughters, is the main cause of female infanticide and mistreatment of the female. One very interesting statistic was that out of 8,000 abortions till date, only one was a boy, and also, 350 kids die every day in Nepal.
Another main reason of the population still growing at the rate it is today is because of the fact that the use of contraceptives is considered a sin in the Roman Catholic religion. Religion is actually what keeps overpopulation going, it acts as the very life source for overpopulation, making sure that it doesn’t just go away.
The only way to developments is through less population. That is what many people think. However, a grim example of population’s reside is Kerela, in India. Though it has the highest literacy rate in India, with largest amount on women’s education and the fact that it is the only state in India that has a larger population of women, it has a dark side, it also has the largest amount of suicides per year, and many other things.
This documentary tackles full on the question of over population.

‘The People Bomb’ reflection:

The more and more children people have, the poorer and poorer they will get. The poorer and poorer they get, the larger the gap between the rich and the poor widens. Now, with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, there will be no overall economic development. Therefore, it can easily be said that over-population is the root cause of the development standstill. That is basically what I learnt from this documentary in a nutshell. The part ‘Who’s overpopulated’ was particularly interesting to me, it made me think about whether I was like that family of four that is such a terror to the environment. But then I looked around, and I realized that I was living in a place that had both in it. Chennai has this blend of those who are actually overpopulating the Earth, and those (like us) who are just plain destroying the Earth in our effort to stay comfortable. That part of the documentary made me think about just how much waste we produce every day, as compared to those living in impoverished places, who cant even afford to produce waste, as everything to them, is important. Though the documentary was a bit graphic, it worked well in the area of conveying its message. Overall, it was a good documentary to watch as it completely and smoothly put forth the fact that the world is overpopulated, and that it must stop. It didn’t just throw everything at you like other documentaries. I was shocked, to say the least, at seeing how lots of these people live, and survive, along with the want to have children, a lot of them.

[julie]

Population Explosion

Population explosion is a large issue in the world, especially in the developing nations. The problem is that the fact that a country is not developed leads to population explosion, because of non-education and other factors, and the fact that a country is overpopulated holds back development. In the world, thirty million people live in the poverty and overpopulation is one of the reasons.

In many developing countries, overpopulation leads to poverty, hard life, difficult growth, children misery… Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world and is also one with the largest population growth. Scientists estimated that, in few years, Nepal’s population would be about three times as big as today. In Nepal, for example, a woman said that she wanted many children believes that more children you have more rich you are. However, in those countries abortion is forbidden. Even if a woman does not want many children she cannot aborted legally. This forces the woman to abort in unclean places and unsafe conditions. Often, after the abortion, the woman dies from infection. Another way to have no children for the women is contraception. The problem is that for some of those women their husband is against it, they do not have the money for it, or even sometimes, they do not know about it.
I think this statistics are very impressive. Nepal has already some trouble to develop now, so how are they going to do when the population will be multiply by three? Most women, in developing nations, believe that it is a good thing to have many children because they can work and earn more money, but the thing is, it is also more mouth to feed. I now understand that, even if a woman does not want children, it is hard for her not to. The woman has a very little control on the number of children she has. The developing countries want to slow the population down but they do not give opportunities or occasion to women to have no many children.

In poor countries, men are often not equal to women, and girls are not equal to boys. In many of these countries, people believe those females are inferior to males. Girls work and boys play and go to school, because the parents pay an education only for their sons. They habitually believe that school is only useful for boys. When a boy is sick, parents bring him immediately to the doctor, when a girl is sick, she is expected to get better by herself and if she finally goes to the doctor, she is extremely sick and it is often too late. Girls, at a certain age, understand that they are less important than their brothers are, and they often wish to be a boy. When they are adult, women have hard lives. They got married in very early ages and learn soon that they must obey to their husband all their lives. In India, two babies are born every three seconds. When the baby is a girl, the mother often aborts. An Indian doctor said that she does ten abortions per month for girls. Many girl children are abandoned and infancies because parents believe a baby girl does not have much importance. In certain countries, people would do anything to have boys.
I am irritated by the fact that some people believe that boys are superior to girls (especially because I am a girl). This is one of the parts who made me mad and sad. I cannot understand that some people still do not consider male and female equal. I was even more chocked when the Indian boy said, “Boys are smarter than girls because girls do not have an education. Girls do not know anything! Boys go to school and girls do NOTHING!” I felt really sorry for the Indian girls in this part especially because what the boy said is not true, while the boys are going to school, girls work the whole day to earn money for the family. It is at this point that I really realized how unfair and unjust it was for the girls.

In Nepal, more than three hundred and fifty children are dying everyday. One child over five dies before five years old. Most of the women have many children because they expect help from them when they are going to be older, also they know some of them can die until then so it is like “a security” as they say. Most of the time children are not healthy because mothers are not. Those poor children look usually much younger than their age.
I think that it is awful to see the number of children dying everyday because of poverty. I was also really chocked to find out that mothers rather have many children and have some of them dying, than have few children in not bad health.

In India, as in other parts of the world, some people are sterilized. Before, in that part of India, thirty thousand people were sterilized per month. Moreover, it is still happening today. Some people are being sterilized for money, because they are poor, and some others are victims of lies. A man was explaining that someone told him that he had a job for him and when he arrived to the hospital, he understood what was all this about. Every year more than five thousand people die from infections due to sterilization. Even though there are some sterilization problems, India’s population is still growing.
The fact that some people were lying to others to get them sterilized really scared me. I did not even know that this kind of things was happening. It is truly awful to do such things.

In Nepal and Philippine, eighty percent of the population is Roman Catholic. Roman Catholic Church is against contraception. In Philippine the number of women using contraception dropped of more than twenty percent. Because contraception methods are rejected by the churches, women have many children, and when they cannot feed them they abandonee them. The police frequently find dead babies hided in fields and other places. In Bolivia, some women want to stop having children but they do not know how, some other do not have access to contraception methods. The problem is that Bolivia government is not going to find any solution to these problems because it wants the population to keep increasing. Indonesia is one of the countries which developed the most during the last few years. Indonesia found new contraception method, such as putting a special white tube under the skin; it is effective during four to five months. Now, some services are in place, for the women, in certain of these countries. The most important is that the women TRUST the people who are trying to help them.
I think the fact that the church is against contraception is a very negative thing. The church is also probably fighting against significant diseases. What does the church want in rejecting contraception method? Does it want people to not have sex? Does it want people to have many children? Maybe. Does it want people to get AIDS or STD? Probably not but in condemning contraception methods it is the result that it will obtain. However, I think that the fact that there are some services to help the women is already a good start.

In Mexico, many men have wives and relations with other women at the same time. The wives know, the other women know too, but they do not do anything about it. Anyway, in Mexico, the belief that men are superior to women is going from father to son. However, some projects started to try to influence the new generation on this.
I could not believe that the woman knew that her husband has affairs and that she is not doing anything about it, “What can I do?” she said. What about divorce! They do not even think about divorce. It show well believe that men are superior to women is present in their society. I was even more chocked when a boy said, “My father told me that I will have to decide for my wife, and if she does not listen to me, I will have to beat her.”

China is also an overpopulated country but the government is really doing something about it. China government is very serious about population problems. In China, the rule is “One family, one child.” In Beijing, the rule is well followed, but not in countryside. Parents want boys, so they keep having children until they get what they want.
I think it is a good thing that China government wants to find solution and is trying to reduce overpopulation, but it is sad that people have such a little control on how many children they want.

India, “Land of Green Magic”, some people call it, one of the largest growing country in the world, country where in some regions most of the girls have an education, but it also has dark sides like unemployment. Kerala, in south India, managed to keep its population down but did not have success with its growth. In some part of India, families do not want too many children because they want their children to have enough food, education, health care, and they believe that not all that is possible with many children.
I was really surprised by the fact that some families in India rather having not too many healthy children than many unhealthy children.

Overpopulation is a big problem, and as it will continue to create struggles between rich and poor, the gap between rich and poor, flat and unflat, and developed and undeveloped is, sadly and probably going to enlarge as well.

[sarah99]

By Sarah

Whoaa. That was a very intense, sad, and enlightening video. The fact that there are one billion humans in extreme poverty saddened me a lot. This documentary started out with the question of who really is overpopulated? The developed world or the developing world? They made the argument that since the developed or industrialized world, which is one/fourth of the people on our planet, uses three/fourths of the world's energy, the developed world might be the one who is "overpopulated", at least in terms of who consumes and contributes to pollution more. Poverty is an ongoing cycle, with a humongous gap between the rich and the poor, even in developed countries. This documentary gave us many examples of how and why population is growing, especially in developing countries, and the ways to stop it, both good and bad.
In Africa , abortion is a very significant issue. Poor women who get pregnant and don't think they can afford more children choose to abort. Many of the women die because of unsafe abortions. Also in Africa, some families consider sons above daughters. For example, if a son gets sick, he is brought in quickly to go to the hospital. But if a daughter gets sick, they are usually not brought in, and if they do, they are very, very sick and usually near death.
In a rural village in India , sons have a better life with more opportunities compared to their sisters. The documentary showed us a family with two sons and two daughters. The two sons went to school and got a lot of time to play. From their point of view, they were smarter than their sisters and superior. In comparison, this family's daughters worked most of the day with hardly any play time, and they could not go to school because their money had to be saved to pay for a dowry when the time came for them to get married.
Dowry can sometimes have some horrible consequences in rural villages in India today. An example of this was a married woman who was beaten by her husband because he thought that she did not have a big enough dowry, causing her to run away. In some cases, the women are burned alive by their husbands and other members of the family because of "too small" dowries. Thankfully, though, there are some good schools in India for girls who are getting the same opportunities as boys for the most part.
In India , it is desperately important for many families to have sons. Many women in India are more inclined to have a lot of kids because they want sons, especially if their first, second, or third child is not a son. Every three seconds, two babies are born in India. Sometimes baby girls are even left to die because they are so unwanted.
In Nepal , 350 children die each day. This is because of extreme poverty, malnutrition, and low medicine supplies. One in every five children in Nepal dies before the age of five. Most children are born into poverty with no way out. Some women decide to have fewer children so that they can provide proper care for the ones they have, which they would not have been able to do if they had opted for a big family.
Some solutions to the population explosion are just as disastrous as having no solutions. Millions of people in India, both men, and women, were forced or tricked into being sterilized in an attempt by the government to try to stop the population explosion. 5,000 Indian women die each year from this practice.
In the Philippines, some Roman Catholics believe that birth control is a sin because they believe that children are to be considered a gift of God, and they believe that children should not be prevented from coming into this world, however disastrous the consequences. Many poor Roman Catholics believe this too and so as a result have large families.
In Indonesia , they did an excellent job in their goal to cut down the population. However, many women got hurt and some died because of poor methods of preventing birth.
In China , people are encouraged strongly to only have one child, and this is much more prevalent in the city than in the country where there are many large families. Sometimes the government even forced women to have abortions if they got pregnant for a second time, and families desperate for sons sometimes abandon baby girls to die. This is strange when there was an old Chinese proverb saying, "More children, more happiness."
There was much success in terms of cutting down the population in Kerala India. Kerala has a dropping population, and many families are very small because with small families, the children in them can get medicine, schooling, and food. The documentary ended with the fact that as the population explosion continues, more people will be fighting over the resources of this world such as water, air and land.
This documentary really enlightened me and opened my eyes to many things that are happening in the world today that I was previously ignorant of. The fact that one billion people in our world (more now, because this documentary is from 1990) are in extreme poverty saddened me so much. It reminded me of how luck I am. So many of the things I learned are SO unjust!!! It made me really angry. Especially the parts about how men are sometimes considered superior to women. This is so unfair and untrue. A woman has a much harder time getting a good education and going up in the world than a man in many parts of the world. And the fact that some girl's own MOTHERS would agree with this in any small way made me angry. The mother of the Indian wife who was getting beat up by her husband and then ran away back home wanted her daughter to go back to her husband!! And she knew what would happen if she did! And many mothers save money for a dowry instead of allowing their daughters to go to school. It baffled me that they couldn't see how beneficial it would be for their daughters to go to school.
The situation in Nepal made me want to cry. The statistic that one in five children in Nepal died before the age of five…. Someone has GOT to help those people. It is sooooooooo sad and devastating. BUT governments need to be wise and just and NOT give solutions that are just as devastating such as forced sterilization in India and forced abortion in China. Killing of baby girls made me want to cry harder. It is so, so, so wrong. It is SO much better to at least give children a chance to live than kill them just because of their sex or because of the fact that they have too many children to care for already. This world is horribly sad. This documentary impacted me in an amazing way, and motivated me to somehow help these people.

[hisu]

The People Bomb Summary
Over the past few days we watched a documentary that had to do with overpopulation and the people bomb. In this documentary we learned that still in many areas, the knowledge of sex is too low, women are considered as second class, and that even they were educated they couldn’t use contraceptives or things like that since they couldn’t afford it.
In India about 12 people are born every second. That means 2 million people are born in a month. India is one of the poorest countries in the world, yet, they have one the highest birth rates. Overpopulation is not the only issue. The impact they each have is the biggest issue of them all. Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world with the highest birth rate in the world. But yet, they don’t use as much as a person from an industrialized country. The average American person uses almost eight times as much as an average person in Nepal. In The United States only about four people live in each house, but in Nepal about eight people are crammed into a small hut, usually a mud hut, that is almost as big as the size of the average living room in an American house. A family of eight live in mud huts, when a family of four people in The States lives in a house of steel and plastic. The numbers and the amount of consumption are affecting the world.
Even in the mega cities there are many slums. Home to the homeless are the slums that are located in the bad side of town. Poverty is also a big problem even in the industrialized mega cities around the world. The knowledge of sex is also a problem in the slums and poor places. In the slums many young people die, because of wrong drug usage. The police force is to undermanned and out gunned to stop this from happening. Even in the mega cities, the gap between the poor and rich is widening at an unstoppable rate. In places like Ethiopia, abortions are illegal, but they are done anyway. Usually, the abortions are done in back alley hospitals, but not done properly all the time either and many women even die from infections. Women don’t want babies, but don’t know how, since they are not well educated on sex. Even when the people learn about contraceptives and birth control pills, they most of the times can’t afford them. Contraceptives are unknown in many places and are too expensive.
Another factor that is playing a big role in the people bomb is the fact that in many places boys are more preferred than girls. Another problem in the rural areas is that women are too dependent, because they are not educated. One fourth of the people in India will die before they reach the age of 15. The problem is that girls are considered as second class in the developing countries. Men in these places are very forceful and there are also many family problems. Many women in these areas, even after their marriage they may be kicked out, because of a low dowry. Too many families are having too many children, because they all want sons. Out of 8000 abortions only one has been with a male child.
In these developing areas more than 350 children die a day. People want more children for safety, because if they have more children they have more people to depend on when they are old. It is tradition in these rural areas for a woman to be pregnant right after giving birth. More people are finally advising people to have fewer children.
In 1986 many people many people were tricked into sterilization. Many of those people who were tricked into sterilization blame the governments for cheating them. The government has officially apologized for their actions, but many are still angry. In India women are treated more like dogs than humans. This is the main reason for the high birth rates and deaths of women.
Religion is also a factor for the high birth rates. In places like Latin America and the Philippines Most of the population is Catholic. In the Roman Catholic religion the use of contraceptives and birth control pills are considered as sins. This is also a big factor in the high birth rates in these countries. People say that they have no choice, but to have children. But at the end it is clear that they can’t care for them all at the end and many children die.
In Indonesia the birth control campaign was very successful and more people started to have less children, but the campaign was put to an end by the almighty religious groups. When the campaign was taking place poverty was cut down by 2/3 but as soon as the campaign was banned the poverty level started to increase again. In places like this men are considered to have the power to order their wives around. Now plays are being made and performed so that the young generation realizes that abuse is not the way to keep a family.
In China, until recently, there was a new rule that one family was only allowed one child. When the rule was first enforced militants marched into the houses of the people and even forced some women to get abortions. Now since the economy is improving the rule has become lenient and many people are starting to have more children. When this campaign was taking place human rights were sometimes questioned, but they were still forced to have only one child.
Kerala a state in India s now considered as a land of green magic. It is considered this, since Kerala is the only state that most of the girls are educated and the only place where the family planning worked. But, even with this Kerala has the highest unemployment rate in India and has the highest suicide rates in the whole of India. This states that everything has a side effect.
We learned that sex education wasn’t well thought, women are considered as second class, and that contraceptives and birth control pills are too expensive. The world still has a long way to go if it is to become a perfect place.


Reflection
I think that this documentary is very touching and that it is very important that we know that this is happening. The documentary showed us what was happening around us. I didn’t even know that this was happening. I never knew that so many people were dying and that the mortality rate was that low. In India more that 12 children are born every second. I was also surprised to find out that so many abortions were taking place around us. I never knew that so many women were getting abortions, because they had girl children. Many people in India demand male children and that is pressuring overpopulation. I thought that this was really stupid, since the females are also needed in this world, because there would be no next generation without them. I think that people in the rural areas should learn that the females are also equal to the males and that they should be treated equally and not as if they were second class. I also agree that overpopulation isn’t the only problem, but the impact that each of them have is also very important. I was surprised by the fact that we used so much more than the people that lived in mud huts in Nepal. I think that more people should learn about this and about their surroundings and try to do as much as possible to fix this problem.

[jungkyu]

Summary Part
This documentary about the people bomb starts off and develops of giving some examples and effects of the population explosion. Money gives better life for the developing people. The effects of population explosion are impoverishment, abortion, female feticide, not getting the proper education, and discrimination of the females. The people bomb is occurred in Africa, Asia, and South America. These countries are more impoverished, higher rate of death, and more pollution. The compare and contrast of the families living in countries which have the population explosion, and those who are not, are shown on the documentary. The differences between them are the sustainability, level of wealth, and their occupations. The occurrence of violence, rate of poverty, and the gap between the rich and poor are increasing everyday. The abortion comes after that. People want to abort their child due to poverty; they want to have a better life. However, these people die everyday due to abortion. The Ethiopians do not want to be pregnant, and the reason for this is because they are uneducated. They do not have any information to prevent being pregnant. Next, the documentary describes about the females’ negative image. The girls in India want to be boys because boys get proper education and do not work, whereas the girls do not get any proper education, and they have to work. Additionally, the girls are having dowry problems. For instance, one Indian woman had saved her money for her daughter’s dowry, instead of her education. She also mentions that her daughter should be good to her husband. However, her husband rebukes her of the fact that she gave little (the dowry). Then comes the differences in families about how they look at females. In some countries, they think that the females are burden, and additional mouth to feed. However, some families dignify the females’ rights and think that they are God’s gifts. Nevertheless, the abortion rate is increasing. At some other point on the documentary, it is mentioned about the sterilization. For example, in India, a guy asked a man that he could get him the job. Since the man had no occupation, the man followed the guy. But when the man reached the place, he realized that he was getting sterilized. In Kerala, compared to the other regions in India, the females are getting proper education and health care. The people are getting lesser babies relatively, due to their proper education. However, there are still some problems in Kerala about the population

Reflection Part
The documentary depicts about the severity of population explosion and the effects of it. It was a bit shocking to watch this documentary, because I have become to realize the reality of the impoverished countries and how they are suffering. At first, I did not actually understand what population explosion was, and what the effects of it were. As to my understandings, I think the population explosion is the increasing rate of population. The more the country is developed, the less the population explosion occurs. The reason for this is that the people living in underdeveloped countries do not get the proper education for them and their children. This cycle repeats and therefore leads up to population explosion. However, the problem is that they are killing their own children because they cannot manage their livelihood. Most of the impoverished people in India have more children compared to the other countries because of the fact that they are impoverished. In developed nations, they do not have as much child as the developing or underdeveloped nations because that they get proper education and that female rights are dignified. The reason for the fact that female rights are dignified and therefore they do not have much child, is because that when female rights are dignified, they often go out to work as well as men, whereas in the countries which female rights are not dignified, the women work all they, and they do not have any chance to get jobs. Therefore, the impoverishment repeats, and the population increases. Towards future, there is a possibility that India’s population may catch up China’s, however will cause more impoverishment to the country, because the increased population is due to the impoverished ones. In other aspects, I was disgusted and again astonished by the fact that families in India abort their child if the child is female. This has relationship with dowry, and also because of the negative viewpoint of females. The thoughts that are kept from the past are that the females are burden, and only son can be their child. It is discriminating the females, and this rate is increasing. The astonishing moment was when I saw the dead babies that are thrown away. How can they do this? Aren’t the babies’ life should be dignified as a human being? I was disgusted and shocked at the point that they are not treated, not even at least a living thing, they are treated as a burden, and cause of more mouths to the family.

[keisuke]

Documentary Summary


By: Keisuke Nakamura

Summary

This documentary was first about how these developing countries, not all but most of them are suffering from this occasion. First they talked about the homeless people and that these people pray every night before they go to sleep that will survive that night. That is because most of them don’t survive. Many of the women has a lot of children even they are young. One woman in the video had 10 children and the 11th one was coming out. One guy in the documentary, who was interviewed, was not taking these birth things very seriously since he said that it wouldn’t happen to him. Most women in these countries are not able to go to school and have education and work all day long while the men and boys are able to have an education and have fun. The both children are complaining about things they have to do. For example one boy is saying that the girls don’t do anything while they go to school to have an education. On the other hand the girl was saying that “Its not fair I work so hard everyday while the boys play, why I cant get a education like them.” The parents of those girls have to decide to use the money on their education or for their wedding. Since many women are having too many babies they try to have this operation that stop these pregnancy to stop. Also from then condoms were made in those countries. However, for the poor people it was too much money for them to get even one. Before China was only allowed to have one child in their family but right now there is like a new law that make the Chinese people to have more than one child in their family. Bolivia is very over populated country so there are many people there. However, there was a very sad news that one baby that was thrown on the bushes. The reporters in that documentary say that the baby was baby was born that day were thrown away. People in that country want to have small family since they don’t have enough money to raise that many children.
I think that’s about I remember lol


What I thought about the documentary

I thought that this video was too sad to watch since it mostly talked about how the poor people are suffering. I also felt bad for the girls that were unable to have an education. When I saw that documentary I felt really lucky that I was born between my parents since I am able to have a fancy life and able to have an education whenever I want. I feel surprised when I see one family having 10 children but they are all suffering since they do not have enough money to feed a lot of food to all of them. They do not even have regular clothes like we wear everyday. The babies don’t even wear anything. When I look at that I feel so sad and I feel like doing something. However, since I am still a kid I cant do anything so when I grow I want to be a person who helps these poor people. By like donating them a lot of food and clothes. Also money. Once it was a very sad documentary to see and Oh My God it was long.

[kwangsampark]

summary and reflection

This documentary is mainly about developing world’s population explosion and their way of reducing it. In many developing world, numerous families have a lot of children. Some have about 10 children. The reason they have a lot of children is because they do not know whether all of their children will survive. They might catch diseases, infections and die and some will starve. The reason developing countries have a lot of population is because women are not educated. When they are not educated, there is no independence for them from their husbands. Then what will they gain by education? Of course it is independence. They would also gain hope, their identity. By them having job skills they will have good jobs to earn money and live their lives. However this is not done in lots of developing countries. The reason to this is because of the cost of money. A lot of parents say that the cost of education is too expensive for them to pay for a girl and since they have little money, they have to make a decision to use the money on their marriage or education. The result will be on their marriage. Only few will get the opportunity to get educated, and that will lead to the population explosion since it is highly possible that women will make wrong decisions. In a particular country, once where men conquered the world, now have too many populations. 2 babies are born every 3seconds. This won’t make any problems, but if the child is a girl, they will get abortion. People think that girls are not as important as boys. They even prey to the god to give them sons not daughters. Some have killed babies right after their birth. One of the families said that if the god gave them son, then they would donate to the poor, but if a girl, they would never. Nepal has more than 350 children born everyday. People who can’t afford to raise them, bury them around rives. This makes the population to increase since they need children to help them. Not everybody lives when they are born. The health clinics are too far and they don’t have enough food for everyone. Husbands want child right way when they get back from their jobs. As a result women cannot be healthy and the population increases. When people have gone through a village, they found that they were smaller than their average ages. They were underweight, not healthy (their mothers weren’t healthy), were also infected. Some has not enough of facility so they have fewer children. Sterilization is one of problems happening in developing countries. Some people earn money by doing such things. Bolivia, the poorest country in South America, is struggling to fewer babies because of their economic limitation. Another reason to the population growth is the year of monkey. This makes the couples to have a lot of babies. They say that it is rather to have a lot than little because they will have them help labors, and some works. China recently made one child policy. China’s one of the biggest concerns is stability. It is economic growth not population growth. But what people think is different. They think that when they have more children then they would be happier. India, one of the fastest growing countries, has children educated. In Karalla, the government succeeded in population control which slowed the birth rate. The difference that you can find is that both men and women are educated. People also have in their mind that if they have a lot of children, then they would have hard economy. Instead of having a lot of children, they educate their few children and take good health care. Some market owners sell products in low price to people. In short, Karalla has succeeded in the field of family planning.

What I think about this whole thing is that people are not doing the right thing. They may have hard time with so many children. But I don’t think that it is a right thing to do: abortion etc. Babies, when they are born, they have lives. They are one human like us. You can not kill one’s life. Why do they also discriminate between girls and boys? As everything has advantages and disadvantages, boys also have advantages and disadvantages. Most important thing that I realized in this video is that both men and women do need education in order to make right decisions. When they get educated, they will get a good job skill, and get a good job. That will give them independence and their identity of living. By getting educated they might also learn about the family planning and plan for the family. Think about their family economy and the number of their children. They will have to consider this. What Karalla has done is a good thing. As a result, they have reduced the population and slowed the birth rate. Likewise if all of the developing countries have known the importance of the education (both men and women), then they might come to an end where their population won’t explode but decrease to some amount.

[maimoona]

Populations Bomb


This documentary is about the population is the under-developed place being over populated and cant verdict a way to stop it because of the poverty. Only in the highly poverty places have a lot of population and can’t find a way to prevent it because of their economic problems they are facing a problem that they don’t have any money to support their nation. In the over populating places there are still billions of people who are still in poverty and are in great need of help. The world’s population is increasing gradually. The gap between the rich and poor is getting superior.

In India there are two babies coming out every three seconds. In the rural India the mother of the poverty classes people abort their kids if it is not a boy because they believe that boy are mote superior then the girls and they are more important to the family, in addition they don’t need saving for their sons for the marriage as much as the daughters, because they don’t need debt. Sons are always the ones who are educated and they are the one who are liberated from all the work of the family. In the other hand in Nepal, three hundred and fifty babies die every day because of hunger and poverty and don’t have good care about them-selves. At least one child dies a day before s/he reaches the age of five. Because of the population that is rising so much in India 30,000 people were being sterilized so they can’t give birth to babies anymore and hence forth because of this they population might reduce, but more kids come out every time, and the population is rising. Poverty people in India are living less than a dollar per day, which is barely anything for a living. One meal a day is a great thing for the poverty, and some people can’t even afford for that, and tons of people die because of this. Even though people are getting sterilized because of the population rise, approximately 5000 poverty women die due to un-proper sterilizing in government hospitals in India.

Bolivia being located in Latin American has the largest catholic population. Bolivia has one of the highest birth populations and is one of the poorest states in American. More than 70% of Bolivia doesn’t have supplies to any birth controlling pills. Since Latin American has a high population of Roman Catholic, roman catholic are against family planning they can’t do anything now because they don’t have supplies to birth control pills, and can’t do family planning they are wedged with what they have and don’t know what to do.

China is the first populated place in the world. There is a policy the one child policy, they gave this policy because of china’s population and they are trying to reduce their country population, but this policy is falling apart. The people in china have been taken out their house in educating them about birth controls.
My opinion upon this documentary is that this has educated me a lot about the population and I have come across lot things that I didn’t know about. One thing I like about this video is that the documentary has not only focused on one particular country they have gone about around the world and have taken different ideas of that place.
I usually think of the development of the country or the positives of the country but never really concerning the population. But after watching this video it has given me a lot of thoughts and has let me know what the world is about with population and what some people do because of the population, and that they don’t have good medical care so they what they think is right. Under-developed countries don’t have supplies to good pills so they can treat their patients with good hostility.

[niranthara]

POPULATION EXPLOSION
SUMMARY AND REFLECTION
NIRANTHARA JAWAHAR
9TH GRADE
DEVELOPING NATIONS


Urban sprawl, over population and population explosion are all different names for very crowded developing nations that have no more room for its people to live or progress. This sudden growth in the number of people is not only too many people, but also the impact that each person plays in society. In developing nations, this over population is felt as more of a burden because the nation cannot support that many people (compared to developed nations). The resources, money and raw materials are all not enough even for a small number of people, leave alone too many.

This factor of population is also the reason for many countries to have a lack of development; it is because there are too many people that the focus on development is lost. When there is over population, there isn’t enough space for each of them to participate in the developing world, that some become impoverished and are left out of development. The lack of space to live and expresses, doesn’t allow the people to have a complete impact for the nation to progress. More than half the population is left out of the ‘flattening world.’
Population explosion causes the bridge between the rich and the poor to become longer because of their lack of raw materials, money and therefore education. When a country has both the wealthy and the poor, the wealthier people are defiantly the ones to benefit because they have money. As they grab the bigger opportunities, the poor are left to live with nothing while the standards of living still rise. As the rich get richer, the poor will get poorer.

Knowledge liberates, but when more than have the people in developing countries are uneducated, they begin to suffer. Since education is what separates people today, the uneducated are always left with the opportunities unwanted by others. Without this education, the uneducated will be unable to find good jobs to support their families and other lives. These less fortunate people lack knowledge in some of the most basic ideas that lead to a sudden growth in population- sex. The unprotected sex that comes due to this lack of knowledge, forces many of theses families to exceed the number of children they can support. Considering that most of them don’t have very well paying jobs, they fall deeper into poverty.

Sometimes religion and culture play a very strong role in the population explosion. The uneducated having no common knowledge of the world, are the first to bend towards the rules and ethics of culture and religion. For example in the Roman Catholic religion, using contraceptives is a sin; which leads to large families who can’t support survive in this world, all together. Similarly in many cultures, the girl child is seen as a burden to the family. Having one hand less on the fields and having to pay a dowry, many families keep trying to have more, children hoping for a boy.


Having a few more people on this earth can cause so many calamities. Usually people see children as hope and the future of their family, but the population explosion put so much pressure making them like burdens. Under the very reason of population explosion, people kill their own children to save themselves and others. Families have more children thinking about their future and giving life, but they forget that the very soul they bring on this earth will suffer. With not enough food, water and space, so many hundreds fight for the raw materials that are the essentials of life. These impoverished people have been through so much, and have been forced either by their families or culture to live on utter garbage, that they loose all their dignity and trust in others. Over population is the reason to people becoming extremely aggressive-they have to fight for every thing they need because nothing is sufficient. As the wealthy get wealthier because of the benefits that they get, being the minority, the poor will get poorer because of the loss in opportunities. Since cultural and religious ethics are so strong within the uneducated circle. Instead of changing their views upon sex and birth, I believe governments should find ways to work around this issue rather than stop mothers from giving birth. Even after going through the pains of death and birth of many children, families always find it comfortable to have more children. Working on the fields, farming families have more children to help around the house and the land. Having more children, leads to having more helping hands to live a good life. At the same time, not being able to feed all these children leads to their death. To secure that they always have enough children, families tend to have more. Over population slows down development, but for the pain that every one of these people affected by poverty go through, it isn’t worth it.


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[asifhilal]

Population Bomb
The world is becoming more and more overpopulated. Overpopulation is not based on how densely populated an area is. Rather, if a country has enough resources for all the residents in it, then it is not overpopulated; but if it does not have the sufficient resources, it is considered overpopulated. There could be a country with less space and more resources, and a place with less people and less resources. According to the video, the place with less people would be considered more overpopulated. In the video, there was an example comparing a modern U.S family, with one that lives in a different poor area. The family in the U.S consumes more than 10 times the resources of the poor family.
What causes overpopulation? The video suggests many reasons. Overpopulation is the superset of many other problems. One of these is that woman do not get treated well. In India, instead of going to school, many girls have to sacrifice the money of their parents to pay a dowry when they get married. They don’t get educated very well. This might not seem to play a role in overpopulation, but it does. This is one of the reasons why parents want only sons. If they get a daughter, then they will want more children until they get a son. This is a problem, and it also leads to some poor government decisions. One of these is like tricking some men to get a vasectomy. In poor countries, contraceptives may not be available to women who want them. This leads to infanticide. Some countries have population goals. This however, can be dangerous. This might force people into severe pain. The video concludes that overpopulation is a growing problem.
I always knew that overpopulation was a problem. However, after seeing this video, I realized it was a bigger problem that it was. When I saw the video, I realized that the world needed to come up with more effective solutions for population control. What I realized was that some people only want to have children, to get a son. If their first few children are girls, then they will keep continuing to have more children, until they have a son. This son mania is what I think is one of the biggest reasons is certain countries for overpopulation. This problem currently does not affect a lot of people in countries with enough resources for their people. However, the world is growing exponentially, and I think this problem will just keep getting bigger if there are no new methods to solve this problem.
I think that the current solutions to overpopulation are worse than the problem itself. This is because; sometimes it just causes extreme pain for the woman. Other times, a plan may seem great, such as population goals. However, such goals may trick people into things that they do not want to do. I don’t even think that China’s plan of 1 child per family will work either. This is because, as the video mentioned, even with the plan, people can have more children if they really want.
I also think that abortion is mostly wrong. This is because; most people will only want an abortion if the child is a girl. I think that there are reasons for abortions, but a preference for sons should not be one of them. It is terrible that overpopulation causes people to do terrible things.
I have mentioned different solutions for overpopulation, some which are a problem itself. I think that it is hard for anyone to find a decent solution to such a big problem. I do not think that people can decrease the problem. I think that people should strive to at least keep this problem from getting much worse (which is a hard task). If the world faces this many problems now with 6.6 billion people, then what will people do by 2050, when it is estimated

[jozefien]

Summary
Even though the documentary that we have seen was made 15 years ago, the points that were highlighted are very up-to-date and are probably more serious now, than they were then. The documentary included the causes as well as the consequences of this global issue. The focus was very broad; it was not about one topic in specific, but it gave a general view of the different facets of overpopulation in various parts of the world.
Overpopulation is not only a serious problem in poor, developing nation, but Western countries have to deal with overpopulation, too. This is the main idea of the beginning of the documentary which tries to answer on the question:”Who is overpopulated?” When a place is overpopulated ,that does not necessarily means that there are too many people living there ,but that the impact on the environment of the people who are living there is too big . This means that overpopulation can be located in all parts of the world. In developing nations the people don’t have a big impact on the environment. Because they are poor, they transport themselves on foot and use natural materials to construct their houses (wood, mud, …).However, in most of those countries the birth rates are very high .All those people with a small impact together form a nation with a huge impact ,therefore we can consider developing countries overpopulated. In Western countries such as the USA the birth rates are significantly lower than in the developing world ,but one person there has more impact on the environment, since they live in a society were fast cars and big houses have become normal.
As mentioned before, in developing nations the birthrates are very high. The main reason why families are so big is simply the fact that the people don’t know how to prevent pregnancy. Because poverty forms a vicious circle, a lot of poor people have poor parents and hence lack a proper education. This results in a very low knowledge of family-planning. Certainly in isolated areas the people have no idea of contraceptives, but this happens in megacities, as well. Even if they would have heard about family-planning and have access to it, in most of the cases it is too expensive for the people. An example: if a woman in Ethiopia wanted to take birth-control pills during one year, than it would cost her about one-third of her total year salary.
Besides the fact that contraceptives are often too expensive and not always available, there are other factors that discourage the use of contraceptives .Those factors include the pressure of society, family, and religion. In some societies having a lot of children shows wealth. Especially men want to have a big family since having many children is a sign of their virility. They don’t realize that it is better to have fewer children who can then be fully supported. Some people want to have a lot of children to ensure that there will be someone to help them when they are old. This is a part of their culture, so hard to change.
In the documentary there was a part that explored the fact that some religions are against artificial contraceptives, for example Christianity. In the Philippines, the only Christian country in Asia, the vision of Christianity on contraceptives has resulted in growth of the population .The government of the Philippines used to provide its population with free contraceptives, but from the moment that the Catholic Church has started supporting the government; the distribution of contraceptives by the government has stopped. The people believe that all children have to be accepted since they are gifts of God. Even social workers, whose job is to inform people about birth-control and family planning, don’t promote artificial contraceptives; because many of them are also Christian they only teach women about their fertility and coitus interruptus, the only accepted birth-control method by Christianity.
The documentary spent quite some time on the status of girls in developing nations. In many cultures girls are worth less than boys. This makes male babies more wanted then female babies. For example, in India there has been set up a law that prohibits sex-determination tests during the pregnancy because otherwise there would be too many abortions in case of a girl. The reason why girls are so unwanted is the old tradition (that is still present in some social classes) that the parents of the bride have to give a dowry (certain amount of money) to the broom’s family. Many women don’t want girls because they have experienced themselves how it is to grow up in a world were you don’t have the ability to achieve anything. The life of poor Indian girls is very hard; they have to help their mothers at home, don’t have the opportunity to go to school, and have to marry the husband that their parents have chosen for them .The lack of education of the women makes them dependent on their husbands ,so they can’t take their own decisions. If they are educated, then they will know that it is better for themselves and their children to have a small family. In a small family they can give everybody the change to go to school, not only the boys, and that would be a great improvement.
Although it is good if a country is making efforts to reduce the population growth, in some countries that has also has negative consequences. In India and China there have been periods that the government went to the houses of the poor and forced them to get sterilized. In India this happened in the 1970’s; people were told they would have a better live, after sterilization. Others were just persuaded to do it, without really knowing what it included and what the consequences were. Those forced sterilization were often done without well-sterilized instruments and with an incredible speed, which had internal bleedings and infections as result. In Indonesia the attempts to decrease the birthrates have been successful; however it has some disadvantages as well. The industrial development of Indonesia has been the beginning of the promotion of family-planning. Now (when the documentary was made) there is an average of 3 children in contrast to an average of 6 children in the 1970’s.This proves that Indonesia’s approach is successful. The promotion of contraceptives works, but the way they are used is not good. The main contraceptive is an implant, but because it is given to big quantities of women, there can be issues about the quality of the implants. Sometimes the implant is not given in the right way, and than there can be infections. Another region that is on the right track in controlling its population is Kerala in India. The Christian missionaries and communist party have given the people good ideas and have made them independent. As a result , Kerala has the highest literacy rate in India.


Reflection
The documentary has given a very realistic and sometimes shocking description about the problems concerning overpopulation .Learned a lot by watching the documentary, not only facts, but it has given me more inside into the mentality that is present in the developing world .
Before watching the documentary it couldn’t understand why families in developing nations were so big, and why they didn’t realize that it’s impossible to give your child a future if you have 10 children and no money. The documentary opened my eyes and showed that most of the people do realize that they can’t take care of so many kids, but that they just don’t have the opportunity to solve the problem.
For me the part about the abortions was very shocking. The conditions in which the women had to do it were very unhygienic, so the risk that they have to get an infection is high. The fact that abortion is not legal in some countries, forces women to go to clandestine “hospitals” where they have no certainty that they will be treated properly. Because I heard that the number of abortions in countries where it is legal is the same as the number in countries were it is illegal, I think that all countries should make it legal, so that the conditions improve and there are less women that die during the abortion procedure.
During the scene in which we could see a girl working while her brothers were playing cricket and saying that the girls do nothing, I was very surprised .That boys are considered to be more in the Indian (and other) culture, was nothing new for me, but I didn’t expect that boys of that age already had that prejudice .That shows that, even though there are done efforts to empower women , a culture can not be easily changed .I felt also very bad for the girls because they have no hope in their lives and have to start working at a very young age instead of playing and making fun.
Watching a documentary like this is very instructive, because it makes you feel more closely related to the problems than when you read the same content in book. The images help a lot to convey the ideas about overpopulation. If I now see people walking on the street then I realize that it is possible that they have the same problems as the people in the documentary.

[priyankajohn]

The people bomb -summary
By-priyanka
The documentary People Bomb by CNN provides very powerful images depicting basic but fundamental problems. The problems discussed are even more acute today and of high relevance. It reports about several dimensions of the global demographic explosion, mostly in the Third World.

India, Bolivia, Philippines, Indonesia, China, Bangladesh etc are some of the countries that were shown in the documentary. The problems were the same everywhere. Women are being treated badly and men being very unfair to them. Women were considered as a burden. Because of this female babies are being put to death or disowned and dumped in garbage bins. Women are tortured if they give birth to girl babies by their own husband and in laws. Girl children are not given equal rights as their male siblings. Girls are forced to do all the household work and are deprived of education whereas the male child has been pampered and given
good education and freedom. Girls when married are harassed for dowry and due to this many have been murdered and tortured. The girl’s family is in no position to support her but force her to go and live with her husband’s family no matter what hardships she goes through cause it is believed that once the girl is married she has to just surrender herself to her new home and has no voice. The section in the documentary about the small village in Nepal was truly devastating almost all the families there have 4children and according to the facts at least 350 babies die yearly in this village. But this does not stop the increase in the birthrate all the families agree that they do not want the children to suffer but as there are no hospitals near the village the families haven’t heard about birth control pills.


In Mexico almost all men traditionally believe that they leaders generation after generation. Apparently that is why the government has given up trying to educate older men and is focusing on the youth hoping that at least they will change their attitudes towards women and will treat them as equals.

Kerala a state in south India was the last subject of the documentary. But unlike the other countries and cities Kerala has 100% literacy and this plays a major role in population control and equality among men and women. Even older women are educated and they are well aware about birth control etc.






Reflection

It’s a pity this condition still prevails in many parts of the so called developing nations. CNN gave me an opportunity through its documentary to understand the seriousness of population. Many parts of the documentary were very disturbing. It shatters me to see what torture and humiliation pain and agony women and girl babies and young girls are put through. On one end technology is going great guns and on the other end there are so many parts of all these developing nations still so under developed so ignorant so poor etc.
Reflection

It’s a pity this condition still prevails in many parts of the so called developing nations. CNN gave me an opportunity through its documentary to understand the seriousness of population. Many parts of the documentary were very disturbing. It shatters me to see what torture and humiliation pain and agony women and girl babies and young girls are put through. On one end technology is going great guns and on the other end there are so many parts of all these developing nations still so under developed so ignorant so poor etc.

[jiyoung93]

Over Population

People Bomb
Reflection on the documentary

Future, about 4.5 human will rise. Over populated is our responsibility. This was the opening sentence of the documentary. It was not the matter number of people; actually, it is the impact that each person creates. Contrasting, the huge gap between the rich and poor is keep increasing. This is also important because rich buy positive products, and more electronically technologies like cars, plastic, chemical, and gas. On the other side, poor are using candle and woods that does not harm environment as much as rich. And the question is, what side of the world is actually populated?

It was sad to see those sick people on the street; their everyday life is a survival. They are afraid to sleep and hard to breathe every moment. Especially, seeing reality of women made sad again. Their dark future resulted all because of money, education, health care, and men. Their only life choice is education or marriage. In addition, a woman does not know how they are becoming pregnant. For this, I tried hard to manage my anger. It is horrible how they do not know anything. Now, people are trying to teach sexual education to prevent this sorrowful pain for women.

Trigger
Concluding, the angelic girls were useless, had weak power, no freedom, and little attention even thought they were sick. The chance of 15-aged girl in India to survive is only 1/4. For example, one little but ambitious girl named (Kyasi) who lives in New Delhi, desperately wants to learn and have same equality and education like his brother. Nevertheless, unfortunately, because of money, she is not able to do what she wants to do. Plus, even though she had enough money to join school, this money will be used for the dowry, the arranged marriage. And nothing gets better, the married girl get beats from her husband in front of her mom. This really made me mad, how cruel and rude to do these unimaginable things. At the same time, I realized that I would never understand or feel them.


(Nov. 20) continue…
Immature little girl marrying at age seven is totally wrong. Moreover, they have to do everything for their unknown husband. The belief of having many children from generation made me upset. Women are able to decide right choice and be independent. It is very hard for government to change the strong cultural belief to new law. Just to get one boy baby, they also have to wait and deliver more babies until the boy baby is born. Therefore, women go through the normal processor to check the health of the baby. It is people’s fate and they have to accept the life. However, the baby feticide is still going on right after the baby is born. Furthermore, everyday, more than 350 babies die. Just imagine, killing huge amount of babies, and still we are over populated!

Abuse/ Fall Apart

“Sterilization”- operation that is not able to produce young babies because they have gone through the processor where it is completely clean. The government illegally forced the citizens. This resulted the anger from many victims. They have lost their jobs. Moreover, the instrument was unclean and caused the death. In Philippine, they have came up with family organization to keep the balance of population. They supplied condoms. (The spiritual did not feed the starvation. Small kids were in nasty garbage, looking for any thing that could be recycled.) People believe that lord has given the gifts of God. Therefore, people take the next baby even though they already have many children. I think this religious belief that makes the poor community and nation worse. I can relate this to the China’s one fortune. For this year, it is animal monkey, therefore people are looking forward to have their child.

No Choice

The major problem in Bolivia is babies that have thrown away in middle of the cold street. It was hard to see the young baby removed and packed in the plastic bag. Still now, I can imagine the part and flesh of poor baby. It was extreme tragic that women had no choice. Nothing has changed for generations. Women, fed up with having more children. Nevertheless, sadly, they did not know how to stop the pregnancy. The U.S government has helped women for the health services for some areas. However, over 70% of people in rural area do no have any access to the proper world.


Price of Success

In Indonesia Jakarta, the governments have tried hard to slow down the population of Indonesia. They came up with cloth fashion and multi posters to let people know. It was very creative to make the patter and design the t-shirt by symbols of condoms. One thing that I learned was that without confidence and trust, this would not work. They are enlightening the women. They also use (cannot remember the name)___ to stop the hormone, so that they will not have any babies for five years. Here, I felt how technology and science is developing rapidly at the same time.

Men

So many countries like India, Indonesia, Zimbabwe, and even Korea have an idea of men as a boss. Predominance of men over women. Mostly, boys get this idea from their father. I even heard from my dad telling my brother. At first, I understood as him having ability to lead the family. But, this is becoming serious and dangerous to rule over the women. For example, Antonio, man from Mexico has three families. His first wife knows what he has done. But unable to protest him back just because he is a boss. It is a pain to see her man flittering with other women, but the men are enjoying when women are suffering. Then I started to feel animosity toward boys for that moment. Still, I am not saying that all the boys are cruel, but certainly, there are true men who only take care for one woman and be responsible for the family. In addition, these real men are rare.

It is important to understand other’s point of view, especially women. High school students in Mexico spread the idea of women and men perspective’s through drama. The ratio and sex problem will be incomplete until men and women respect each other.

China’s Crossroads

Now, the new policy in China is one family. This is working, but about 75% of poor people do not aware of the law; and therefore the policy is falling apart. What is the use if more than half of the population does not follow the rule? However, this idea should spread more widely because I think it is essential. It is hard to find the balance between over populated and less populated. Still, the family police are not steady because they are trying to focus on both economic and population growth.



India’s victory

Women believe that importance of children is education. However, because it is high populated and unemployed, they had to struggle a lot. For people who decide to suicide, they are afraid to die. Once again, the impact that each individual bring is a lot. Like natural resources and water. This tragic documentary made my eyes open to see the real world. And made me to believe that all this things are happening. I only heard and read about all these kinds of shocking news. In addition, it proved what I have heard. Mostly, I pitied them and learned the reality of this world more specifically and realistically. There are numerous problems that is extremely difficult to solve, and that is why we, as student should learn more about their life and help them out in any way.

[rmanu]

Documentary Reflection

There is a lot of population in undeveloped countries. Especially the poor, they have more than four per family. It is very hard for them to get enough food for the family and the family has to spend more money. They do not get enough health care or not at all any health care. In big cities the gap between rich and poor increases day by day. Thousands of people do abortion, especially the poor none of them are using condoms. Some people do not even know how they get pregnant. In the villages the girls do not get education, for example India. Some girls get married at the age of seven. The girls have to work their whole life. Some husband’s ask for more dowry. Families do not want girls, they only want boys. In often ages there are mostly girls. Every 3 seconds in India a baby is born. In Nepal 350 children die per day in Nepal. The children in Nepal are not fed well. Children who look like they are 10 years old are actually 16 years. 80% of the Philippines population is Roman Catholic. The population is uncontrolled. In Bolivia 70% of the women does not take contraceptives. In Indonesia due to birth control the population is not so much. This helped Indonesia develops because the poor did not have that many babies so the families could live instead of suffer. In Mexico men are married but have affairs with other women. The wives no that their husband has affairs with other women but they still do not do anything. In China the rule is to have one child per couple. In villages this rule applies but no one follows the rule. 70% of the population lives in the villages. In Kerala families give education to girls and boys equally. In schools children get free lunch main focus is on food and health.

Reflection

I think that the poor still do not understand that if they have more children they cannot eat but the poor think that if they have more children it will help them in the future. The poor particularly want boys but for some people it turns out to be girls. The poor people want boys because they do not have to save money for their dowry and they can also get any kind of job. The poor should stop having more than three babies because it will increase the population and it will also make their family endure. I think the government should focus more on villages because some people do not even know how they get pregnant because they are not educated. The government should stop dowry because it will not affect the girl’s education. If the government stops dowry the family does not have to save money and the girls can get education. The government should start more government schools in villages like in the cities and the people can get free education. I think that in Mexico the government should something about men being married but having affairs with other women. The government should arrest the people who do this because than there is no point in marrying a women. People get married to live with each other for their whole life. I think the government should arrest people who do this. If the government does not do anything about this than most women will not be virgins and they will have a baby before they are married. So due to this the population will increase rapidly and there soon there will nothing like marriage.

[zachghaderi]

People Bomb

By Zach Ghaderi

Summary:

Which situation would you consider over populated: a city in the US with 1000 people (each family with two children on average), or a city in Nepal with 1000000 people (each family with six children on average)? The logical answer would be the millions of people in Nepal. Though, some would argue that it is not the quantity, but quality of people that measures over population. They would say that factors like the amount of trash and pollution that each citizen outputs that contributes to the population bomb. The population bomb is basically just the over growth of the population on the earth. The population on earth is increasing very rapidly. Two babies are born in India alone every 3 seconds and by the time you finish reading this sentence there will be 12 new lives on the earth. Thought many nations are doing as much as they can do stop this massive over population. China, for example, has put in place a law so that for each family there is only allowed to be one child. Consequences for law breaking could result in job loss, less medical coverage, and much more. For other developing nations though, it is not as easy to control the population. Methods like birth control are rarely even heard of in the complete slums. But unfortunately, for the ones who decide to become “sterilized” the conditions for the operations are usually very below standard. 5000 women die each year due to sterilization complications in India. The fight to stop the population bomb is a never ending battle…

Opinion:

The documentary was very eye opening. I never thought of population to be such a big issue. I would have never linked it to the development of a nation. Much of the subject matter was quite graphic but I think that it is only necessary to get the point across. Large portions of the statistics where disturbing and completely unbelievable. Scenes of entire villages digging through the mountains of wasteland and decay are jaw dropping. Women’s rights played…or didn’t play a large roll of it. The most rural areas of the world the women have absolutely no say in anything. They have no choice in how many children they have or don’t have. Women are looked at as some sort of tool for men. It is really quite disturbing. Overall I enjoyed the documentary. It was very educational.

[elizabethw]

REFLECTION
This documentary or movie has stated the fact that the human population is rising very

fast and yes it did feel completely sad infact I heard people say things like

“What’s up with CNN always making a depressed feeling” and “it’s like depression on

“What’s up with CNN always making a depressed feeling” and “it’s like depression on

request” and I have to admit I felt like that to but we have to at some point in our lives

face it that all the things we saw are true life things and they will keep happening unless

we put a stop to it and the way people have made attempts it seems as if it is no use

people always start pointing fingers and saying things like “it’s the governments fault

they are not providing enough education on these things” yes they might not be taking

actions but people who say this should ask themselves what have I done to try to prevent

this. There are two new babies being born in three seconds and these are most probably

girls this is where culture or religion kicks in India girl babies are not always exepted into

the parents life some are killed strait after their birth which is infenside or abandoned or

they are not educated well work while their brother plays like one of them said “life is all

play for them and they don’t want to take it seriously” it is true these girls at least could

be taught how to use birth control this way they will have the knowledge to tell the other

people in the village or town about this some people are very concerned about this but

they don’t have any knowledge on how to stop it and some people just say that they will

take as many children as god gives them and that they are gifts of god and he will take

care of it. The town in the trash dumps really surprised me and after seeing the dead baby

it really scared me because this baby had just died because it was not feed properly and

yet their church pastor keeps speaking against it he says “people who use birth control are

sinners, we must take as many babies that are given to us from god” but their one of the

countries who really need to watch out on the growth of population. It is also sad to hear

that women have no control over how they use themselves

[tamsin]

The world is over populated. Masses of people are added to the world each year. But in cases where over population is more severe is the developing countries. It is really hard to understand that these poor families in 3rd world countries, they don’t have any subsidy for contraception, that they can’t afford any, or they live in too much of a secluded area where those sort of materials can’t be available. Religion has been influencing, especially the Catholic Church saying taking the drug is a sin.
Less than a decade ago, free contraception was handed out to the people who were in need of it, but the catholic church had got involved and got rid of the new government funding, the catholic church believe that this so called “God” blesses the family with as many children that it thinks they should have. And by taking contraception, is killing gods wishes. But how can they just keep having children when they no they cannot afford to supply them with their needs? A women from a village said that having a large family wouldn’t matter, even if they were destitute of money and food that “god” will support them, and some kind of miracle will happen to make sure that their children get what they need to survive.
One woman from a fishing village in India, said that her husband demands to have sex with her, and of course the man being the boss of the household, the women must agree to his demands, without using any sort of safety to prevent any pregnancies from occurring. This is an ongoing cycle in developing nations. These poor women don’t have a say in pretty much everything, to what they do every day, which mainly consists with waiting on her husband, and how they use their own body.

Infantside in Bolivia is extremely high. The child is murdered shortly after birth, due to the cause that the parents were unable to support the child in any way, or that they already had girls, and that they needed a boy. 70% of Bolivian women do not have any sort of c0nceetion supplies to prevent pregnancies.

In Indonesia 60% of the population has a family of 6 and over. Some of the families with up to 6 -8 children said that by having a large family, that they would be able to support them as they get older. But having so many mouths to feed mean less food and money gets around.

The majority of girls in rural India to don’t go to school. The family rather spend it on her dowry to give to her husband. But what pisses me off is that the boy gets to get the education and a good head start in life.
Girls in developing nations are socialized into a negative image. They don’t get any proper education, and are always under there husbands dominant and constant control
In China, Pregnant women have been reportedly taken out of their homes, taken to a clinic, to undergo an abortion. This is sick behavior that the government is supplying to maintain the 1 child policy.
The reproductive rates belong to the state government.75% of Chinas population live in the country side. They say that their sons pass on the family name and to take on the family business. The girls have no use for any of those tasks. Economic growth in China is actually more severe than the birth rate growth. Some of the women in the Chinese village said that it5 is economically difficult to have any children.

In Kerala, the birth rate is the lowest in all of India. But unfortunalty it is failing to progress economic development. It has the highest unemployment rate and the highest suicide rate. 1 quarter of girls are literated in Kerala and it’s the one place in India were the women over populate the men.

In a Clinique in India, they had done over 8000 abortion procedures, and only a shockingly 12 was a male. Why do they think that women are so inferior to men?

Sterilization has been growing in India. In 1975, India New Delhi forced men and women to be sterilized to prevent them from becoming fertile.
5000 women each year die from sterilization complication. This is either because the doctor was in a rush, or either the doctor was inexperienced.

In Mexico it documented these young boys about where they think there wife would stand in their family; He replied by saying “my father taught me that the man should be the dominant one, and if my wife says anything against my will, I will have to hit her.
This is absolutely disgusting. Young boys are taught from a young age that they are the control freaks of the family.. Men in all 3rd world societies need a kick up the ass by these women. They should decide together how many children they should have not the thingyy husbands.

I am so disappointed frustrated and angry that I now know what happens to these women. I mean there was a girl married at nine !! This is really sick. Her mother taught her to always do what he says, and to be quiet for most of the time. Why is this still happening! A man in Mexico was cheating on his wife with varies of colleagues from his work, and what really pisses me off was that she new it, but she said she couldn’t do anything about it. OFCOURSE SHE CAN! LEAVE THE BASTARD!

Until the societies in 3rd world countries learn the complications of not have any sort of contraception , the third world population will continue to rise.

By tamsin

[nitika]

Overpopulation Is not just how many people there are but the impact that each person has. This is something we learned from the video. In a developed country the average number of children a couple has is two, and in a developing country it’s a double of that. The people in thje developed country affect the world more as they use more electricity, give more waste, etc and therefore it pollutes the earth. The people in developing countries live on the law that more children have more hands, and therfore, when the parents become old there is somebody there to look after them .
But the question arisis. How can they feed so many people, as afterall they are the parents and it is their responsibility? Many people in devloping countries don’t get the opportunities that people get in developed countries partly because their government is too poor or partly because they live in a place hard to reach.
Developed countries may be populated but the difference is that they have the strength, money and power to support their people.
Over population may lead to many things as underdevelopment. Many people are left out from the flattening world.
In many developing nations women are considered inferior to men. They ar enot given a good education and are considered a burden, espicially in India because the parents have to provide a dowry for their girl child which puts a big strain on their family. This leads to abortions and in countries where abortions are illegal, it leads to unsafe abortions done by quacks, etc. Many women in developing countries want to use contrraceptives but don’t partly because their religion doesn’t allow it and consideres it as a sin or they don’t have the knowledge of using contraceptives and it is not easily avialbale. In some countries it is too expensive to use and therfore women don’t but it as how can they give up buying food, etc?
The second class status that women face is an imporant reason for over population. Women don’t have poroper education, a right, a voice. They are made to believe that they are inferior.
Over population increases the gap between the rich and the poor.

[sparsh]

The people bomb

Summary

Overpopulation is not just how many people are but the impact that each person has in their environment. Overpopulation is in mostly developing nations. The average people in a family in a developing country is four memebers but in a developing country it is eight members. Countries like America have a average of 2 kids per family but countries like Nepal have a average of six kids per family. People in America live under law and rules. They live an organized life. The women have an education, so they can have a choice. They are not forced to have children. They dont have to listen to their husbands like slaves. In developing countries like Nepal, women dont get an education and have to do what their husband says. If their husband want more kids, the women have to obey. Two babies are born in India alone every 3 seconds. That just shows us how populated India is. Developed countries also prevent overpopulation is because of the use of condoms and birth control pills. In the slums of most developing countries like Nepal and India people have no idea what they are, and the very few people who do choose not to use it. People in developed countries also get sterilized or a vasectomy. In the developed countries like America it is a very safe procedure and they have qualified professionals for the job, but in countries like India more than 5000 women die a year because they get sterilized by a amatuer or reused needles. Bisectemi is very rare in developing countries because men are said to be dominant. The matter of overpopulation has been there for years. In china there is law that a family can only have one child. If you disobey you could loose your job and/or get less medical coverage.

Reflection

This documentary was shocking and disturbing but very interesting. I would have never thought that population was such a big problem. I was shocked when I heard that, here in India there is a baby born every 3 seconds. That is just insanity. No wonder we are the second most populated country in the world. Some parts of the documentary I just had to look away. Like the scenes of the baby, where there are flies going inside their mouths and noses, that was terrible. Also when they show the dead babies lying on the grass. Extremely graphic images shown. The documentary said that in most rural areas of the developing countries like India and Nepal men dominated women. Women had to do what the men said, liking it or not. They couldn't even go to school. That's just crazy. Women have all rights that men do. If women don't get a right to say if they want kids and how many they want and if they want to stop, they should be allowed to! Without that population will increase and wont stop. Overall this documentary is very eye opening. I learned a lot by watching this documentary. If there is any development in this topic I would love to find out and watch another video on it.