Maldives - SOCIETY

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Maldives - Population

Based on the 1990 census, the population was 213,215. The country's population in mid-1994 was estimated at 252,077. The high 1994 birthrate of 44 per 1,000 will lead to a population of more than 300,000 by the year 2000 and 400,000 by 2020. Although the high population growth rate was a serious problem, Maldives lacks an official birth control policy. The population growth rate also poses problems for the country's future food supply because the dietary staple of rice is not grown in the islands and must be imported.

The largest concentration of Maldives' population is in Male, a small island of approximately two square kilometers, whose 1990 population of 55,130 represented slightly more than 25 percent of the national total. Giving meaningful average population density is difficult because many of Maldives' approximately 1,200 islands are uninhabited. Of the approximately 200 inhabited islands in 1988, twenty-eight had fewer than 200 inhabitants, 107 had populations ranging from 200 to 500, and eight had populations between 500 and 1,000. A government study in the mid1980s listed twenty-five places with a population of more than 1,000. Maldives has few towns besides the capital of Male. Villages comprise most of the settlements on the inhabited islands. The 1990 census recorded an average population density for the Maldives of 706 persons per square kilometer.

The first accurate census was held in December 1977 and showed 142,832 persons residing in Maldives, an increase of 37 percent over a 1967 estimate. The next census in March 1985 showed 181,453 persons, consisting of 94,060 males and 87,393 females. This pattern has continued in Maldives, with the 1990 census listing 109,806 males and 103,409 females.

Despite rapid population growth, family planning programs in Maldives did not begin in a well-funded and planned manner until the UN implemented several programs in the 1980s. These programs focused on improving health standards among the islanders, including family planning education emphasizing the spacing of births and raising the customary age of marriage among adolescents. Abortion was not a legally accepted method for child spacing in Maldives. In the mid-1980s, a World Health Organization (WHO) program monitored the extent and use of various contraceptive methods over a four-year period. As of the early 1990s, the government had taken no overt actions toward limiting the number of children per couple or setting target population goals.

<>Ethnic Groups and Language
<>Social Structure

Maldives

Maldives - Ethnic Groups and Language

The contemporary homogeneous mixture of Sinhalese, Dravidian, Arab, Australasian, and African ethnicity in Maldives results from historical changes in regional hegemony over marine trade routes. Clarence Maloney, an anthropologist who conducted fieldwork in Maldives in the 1970s, determined that an early Dravidian-speaking substratum of population from Kerala in India had settled in the islands, leaving its legacy in the language and place-names. This group was subsequently displaced by Dhivehi-speakers who arrived from Sri Lanka and whose language became the official one. Arabs compose the last main group to arrive beginning in the ninth century. However, a rapidly disappearing endogamous subgroup of persons of African origin called the Ravare or Giraavaru also existed. In 1970, facing the loss of their home island in Male Atoll because of erosion, the Ravare moved to Hulele. But a few years later, the community of 200 people were transferred to Male to permit the expansion of the airport on Hulele.

The only distinct ethnic minority is found in Male among the trading community of Indians, who settled there in the 1800s. Several hundred in number, they are also a religious minority, belonging to the Shia branch of Islam. In addition, a small number of Sri Lankans have come to Maldives in recent years to work in the tourist resorts because Maldivians, as devout Muslims, refuse to work in facilities serving alcoholic beverages. This situation has created some resentment on the part of local Maldivians facing unemployment.

The language Maldivian Dhivehi belongs to the Indo-European language family. Derived from Elu, an archaic form of Sinhalese (the language of Sri Lanka), it has numerous loanwords from Arabic, from Hindi--which is used in trade with Indian merchants- -and from Tamil. It has contributed one word, "atoll," to international usage. In Dhivehi, the numbers from one to twelve are of Sinhalese origin, and after twelve, Hindi. The names of the days are Sinhalese and Hindi. The names of persons are Arabic.

Dhivehi is spoken throughout the atolls. Dialect differences are pronounced in the four southernmost atolls, however. The traditional script, Thaana, is written from right to left. This locally invented script contains twenty-four letters, the first nine of which are forms of the Arabic numerals. In 1977 a romanized script was introduced to be used along with Thaana for official correspondence, but since 1979 the requirement is no longer mandatory.

Maldives

Maldives - Social Structure

Maldives was a caste society well into the 1920s. Modernization efforts however, have helped make Maldives more homogeneous in the early 1990s. Traditionally, a significant gap has existed between the elite living on Male and the remainder of the population inhabiting the outer islands--those atolls distant from Male. President Gayoom's development philosophy has centered on decreasing this gap by raising the standard of living among the 75 percent of Maldivians who live in the outer atolls as well as making Maldives more self-sufficient. Fortunately, social tensions that might have affected these two distinct societies were lessened by the isolation of the outer islands. The geographical advantage of having many islands, for example, has enabled Maldives to limit the impact of tourism to special resorts.

Male, the traditional seat of the sultans and of the nobility, remains an elite society wielding political and economic power. Members of the several traditionally privileged ruling families; government, business, and religious leaders; professionals; and scholars are found there. Male differs from other island communities also because as many as 40 percent of its residents are migrants.

The island communities outside Male are in most cases selfcontained economic units, drawing meager sustenance from the sea around them. Islanders are in many instances interrelated by marriage and form a small, tightly knit group whose main economic pursuit is fishing. Apart from the heads of individual households, local influence is exerted by the government appointed island khatib, or chief. Regional control over each atoll is administered by the atolu verin, or atoll chief, and by the gazi, or community religious leader. Boat owners, as employers, also dominate the local economy and, in many cases, provide an informal, but effective, link to Male's power structure.

The family is the basic unit of society. Roughly 80 percent of Maldivian households consist of a single nuclear family composed of a married couple and their children rather than an extended family. Typically, unmarried adults remain with relatives instead of living alone or with strangers. The man is usually the head of the family household, and descent is patrilineal. Women do not accept their husbands' names after marriage but maintain their maiden names. Inheritance of property is through both males and females.

As Muslims, men may have as many as four wives, but there is little evidence to suggest that many have more than one. Islamic law, as practiced in Maldives, makes divorce easy for men and women. Divorce rates are among the highest in the world. According to the 1977 census, nearly half the women over the age of thirty had been married four times or more. Half of all women marry by the age of fifteen. About 60 percent of men marry at age twenty or later.

The status of women has traditionally been fairly high, as attested to in part by the existence of four sultanas. Women do not veil, nor are they strictly secluded, but special sections are reserved for women in public places, such as stadiums and mosques.

Maldives

Maldives - RELIGION

With the exception of Shia members of the Indian trading community, Maldivians are Sunni Muslims; adherence to Islam, the state religion since the twelfth century, is required for citizenship. The importance of Islam in Maldives is further evident in the lack of a secular legal system. Instead, the traditional Islamic law code of sharia, known in Dhivehi as sariatu, forms the basic law code of Maldives as interpreted to conform to local Maldivian conditions by the president, the attorney general, the Ministry of Home Affairs, and the Majlis. On the inhabited islands, the miski, or mosque, forms the central place where Islam is practiced. Because Friday is the most important day for Muslims to attend mosque, shops and offices in towns and villages close around 11 a.m., and the sermon begins by 12:30 p.m. Most inhabited islands have several mosques; Male has more than thirty. Most mosques are whitewashed buildings constructed of coral stone with corrugated iron or thatched roofs. In Male, the Islamic Center and the Grand Friday Mosque, built in 1984 with funding from the Persian Gulf states, Pakistan, Brunei, and Malaysia, are imposing elegant structures. The gold-colored dome of this mosque is the first structure sighted when approaching Male. In mid-1991 Maldives had a total of 724 mosques and 266 women's mosques.

Prayer sessions are held five times daily. Mudimu, the mosque caretakers, make the call, but tape recordings rather than the human voice are often used. Most shops and offices close for fifteen minutes after each call. During the ninth Muslim month of Ramadan, Muslims fast during the daylight hours. Therefore, caf�s and restaurants are closed during the day, and working hours are limited. The exact occurrence of Ramadan varies each year because it depends on the lunar cycle. Ramadan begins with the new moon and ends with the sighting of the next new moon.

The isolation of Maldives from the historical centers of Islam in the Middle East and Asia has allowed some pre-Islamic beliefs and attitudes to survive. Western anthropologist Maloney during his 1970s fieldwork in Maldives reports being told by a Muslim cleric that for most Maldivians Islam is "largely a matter of observing ablutions, fasting, and reciting incomprehensible Arabic prayer formulas." There is a widespread belief in jinns, or evil spirits. For protection against such evils, people often resort to various charms and spells. The extent of these beliefs has led some observers to identify a magico-religious system parallel to Islam known as fandita, which provides a more personal way for the islanders to deal with either actual or perceived problems in their lives.

Maldives

Maldives - EDUCATION

Only primary and secondary education, neither of which is compulsory, is offered in Maldives. Students seeking higher education must go abroad to a university. Maldives has three types of schools: Quranic schools, Dhivehi-language primary schools, and English-language primary and secondary schools. Schools in the last category are the only ones equipped to teach the standard curriculum. In 1992 approximately 20 percent of government revenues went to finance education, a significant increase over the 1982 expenditure of 8.5 percent. Part of the reason for this large expenditure results from recent increases in the construction of modern school facilities on many of the islands. In the late 1970s, faced with a great disparity between the quality of schooling offered in the islands and in Male, the government undertook an ambitious project to build one modern primary school in each of the nineteen administrative atolls. The government in Male directly controls the administration of these primary schools. Literacy is reportedly high; the claimed 1991 adult literacy rate of 98.2 percent would make Maldives the highest in South Asia and the Indian Ocean region.

In Maldives primary education comprises classes one through five, enrolling students in the corresponding ages six through ten. Secondary education is divided between classes six through ten, which represent overall secondary education, and classes eleven and twelve, which constitute higher secondary education. In 1992 Maldives had a total of 73,642 pupils in school: 32,475 in government schools and 41,167 in private schools.

Traditionally, education was the responsibility of religious leaders and institutions. Most learning centered on individual tutorials in religious teachings. In 1924 the first formal schools opened in Male. These schools were call edhuruge, and served as Quranic schools. Edhuruge were only established on two other islands at this time. The basic primary school on the islands in the 1990s is the makthab, dating from the 1940s. Primary schools of a slightly larger scale in terms of curriculum, enrollment, and number of teachers, are called madhrasaa. During the 1940s, a widespread government campaign was organized to bring formal schooling to as many of the inhabited islands as possible. Enthusiastically supported by the islanders, who contributed a daily allotment of the fish catch to support the schools, many one-room structures of coral and lime with thatched roofs were constructed. The makthab assumed the functions of the traditional edhuruge while also providing a basic curriculum in reading, writing, and arithmetic. But with the death of reformist president Didi and the restoration of the sultanate in the early 1950s, official interest in the development of education in the atolls waned.

Throughout the 1960s, attention to education focused mainly on the two government schools in Male. In 1960 the medium of instruction changed from Dhivehi to English, and the curriculum was reorganized according to the imported London General Certificate of Education. In the early 1990s, secondary education was available only in Male's English-medium schools, which had also preschool and primary-level offerings. Dhivehi-medium schools existed, but most were located in Male. These schools were private and charged a fee.

As of the early 1990s, education for the majority of Maldivian children continues to be provided by the makthab. In 1989 there were 211 community and private schools, and only fifty government schools. The results of a UN study of school enrollment in 1983 showed that the total number in the new government primary schools on the atolls was only 7,916, compared with 23,449 in private schools. In Male the number of students attending government schools was 5,892, with 5,341 in private schools. Throughout the 1980s, enrollment continued to rise as more government-sponsored schools were constructed in the atolls. In 1992 the first secondary school outside Male opened on Addu Atoll.

In 1975 the government, with international assistance, started vocational training at the Vocational Training Center in Male. The training covered electricity, engine repair and maintenance, machinery, welding, and refrigeration. Trainees were chosen from among fourth- and fifth-grade students. In the atolls, the Rural Youth Vocational Training Program provided training designed to meet local needs in engine repair and maintenance, tailoring, carpentry, and boat building. On the island of Mafuri on Male Atoll, a large juvenile reformatory also offered vocational training. Established by the Ministry of Home Affairs in 1979, the reformatory provided training courses in electrical and mechanical engineering, carpentry, welding, and tailoring, as well as a limited primary school academic curriculum.

International organizations enabled the creation of the Science Education Center in 1979 and an Arabic Islamic Education Center opened in 1989. Japanese aid enabled the founding of the Maldives Center for Social Education in 1991. In the latter half of 1993 work began on the Maldives Institute of Technical Education to help eliminate the shortage of skilled labor.

Maldives

Maldives - HEALTH

Health Conditions

Life expectancy at birth in Maldives in 1994 was 63.2 years for males, 66.1 for females, and 64.7 overall. The death rate was estimated at seven per 1,000 in 1994. Infant mortality was estimated at 53.8 per 1,000 live births in 1994, a dramatic decrease from the rate of 120 per 1,000 in the 1970s. Nutrition is an important factor affecting health. In the 1980s, the daily average intake of calories was estimated at 1,781.

Waterborne and tropical communicable diseases are prevalent as the result of an inadequate drinking water supply. In Maldives the freshwater table is shallow and easily contaminated by organic and human waste. To combat these problems, the Male Water Supply and Sewerage Project was launched in 1985. Its completion in 1988 allowed sewer pipes to collect sewage for pumping into the sea. However, in the outer islands no such sewage systems exist. The government has promoted the construction of ferrocement rainwater tanks in recent years to help ensure safe drinking water in the outer islands. Major diseases include gastroenteritis, typhoid, and cholera. Malaria, tuberculosis, filariasis, eye infections, poliomyelitis, venereal diseases, and leprosy are also reported. Since the late 1970s, a number of disease-eradication projects have been organized with assistance from the WHO.

<>Health Care

Maldives

Maldives - Health Care

In Maldives the Ministry of Health is responsible for the delivery of health services. Despite government efforts, a major constraint facing the health sector in the early 1990s is a shortage of skilled personnel and health facilities. The WHO reported in 1989 that the population per physician was 7,723. However, when the ratio for Male was separated from that for the atolls, the acute shortage of physicians for the majority of Maldivians became even more obvious. Whereas the population per doctor in Male in 1989 was 2,673, in the atolls it was 35,498. These ratios were derived from a 1989 total of sixteen physicians: twelve in Male and four in the atolls. Also, in 1989 only one dentist was located in Male.

Maldives' medical establishment in the early 1990s consisted of the Male Central Hospital, four regional hospitals, two in the north and two in the south, and twenty-one primary health care centers. The Central Hospital maintains ninety-five beds, and the four regional hospitals have a combined total of sixty-one beds. In 1992 thirty physicians and seventeen medical specialists worked in the Central Hospital. Furthermore, the government opened the Institute for Health Sciences in 1992, and the 200-bed Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital was scheduled to open in 1994.

Each administrative atoll has at least one health center staffed by community health workers. Most of the inhabited islands also have traditional medical practitioners. However, it was reported in the early 1990s that the atoll hospitals and health centers could only treat minor illnesses. Routine operations could be performed only in Male Central Hospital, which had Russian physicians.

To provide better health facilities in the outer islands, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), in collaboration with the Maldives government, outfitted two boats to be used by mobile health teams. In 1985 two mobile health teams were dispatched from Male, one to the north and one to the south. Each team included a primary health care worker, a nurse, a family health worker, a malaria fieldworker, three community health workers, and a government official. The services they provided included immunization, communicable disease control, family health, nutrition, and health education. In the late 1980s, a third team was added.

Maldives