Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday that no Muslim family should engage in birth control or family planning, and has called again on pious Muslims to have more children.
"We will multiply our descendants. They talk about population planning, birth control. No Muslim family can have such an approach," he said in a speech in Istanbul broadcast live on television.
"Nobody can interfere in God's work. The first duty here belongs to mothers."
Women's groups and opposition politicians have criticised Erdogan, a devout Muslim for telling women how many children to have and dismissing the Western idea of gender equality.
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Activist group Platform to Stop Violence Against Women, condemned Erdogan's comments as a violation of women's rights.
"You (Erdogan) cannot usurp our right to contraception, nor our other rights with your declarations that come out of the Middle Ages," the group said in a statement on Twitter.
"We will protect our rights."
Erdogan previously equated birth control with treason in 2014, saying it risked causing a generation of Turks to “dry up”.
He also urged mothers to aim for four children, saying: “One means loneliness, two means rivalry, three means balance and four means abundance.”
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