Venzuelan women asked to bear more children to help country\'s growth

Venezuela: President Nicolas Maduro wants Venezuelan women to have many children as a way to boost the country, which has seen millions of people flee in recent years to escape its economic crisis.

Maduro made the exhortation during a televised event Tuesday evening for a government program promoting various birth methods.

''God bless you for giving the country six little boys and girls,to give birth, then, to give birth, all women to have six children, all. Let the homeland grow!''

Nicolas Maduro, President of Venezuela

The comments drew criticism from human rights activists and others who noted Venezuelans already are struggling to provide food, clothes and health care for their families.

The country's economic collapse, coupled with its deep political divisions, led more than 4.5 million Venezuelans to emigrate since 2015, according to the United Nations.

The U.N. World Food Program also recently said that 9.3 million people  nearly one-third of Venezuela's population  are unable to meet their basic dietary needs.

“You have to be very cynical to ask that we have six children,”

Magdalena de Machado, Housewife

De Machado and others also questioned how women could be expected to increase births amid the deterioration in the country's health care, both for adults and children.

A report by Humans Rights Watch in collaboration with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health concluded last year that the health system in Venezuela has “totally collapsed.”

It also cited other issues like, rising levels of maternal and child mortality as well as the spread of vaccine-preventable diseases.