Gender, health and population policy
Postel, E.
Newsletter 39: 25-26
1992
PMID: 12285921 Document Number: 327790
Indonesia is an international showpiece of successful population control. The number of desired acceptors of family planning is fixed by a coordinating board in cooperation with international advisers including the World Bank. More than 95% of the actual acceptors or users of contraceptives are women rather than couples. Numerical targets are set for districts, subdistricts, villages and hamlets; and local administrators are charged with the execution of the program. Ambitious village or district leaders use a variety of incentives and disincentives to comply with these directives issued by superiors. "2 children is enough" is the slogan on ubiquitous posters in the archipelago. A woman who is pregnant for a 3rd time may face scorn in her village. Although family planning has succeeded in averting births, maternal mortality rates in Indonesia are among the highest in the world. 55% of Indonesian women suffer from anaemia, particularly pregnant or breast feeding women. In principle there is free choice of contraceptives, but effective means such as hormonal implants, IUDs, and sterilization are promoted instead of pills and barrier methods. Thus, a program originally designed to be sensitive to community concerns runs the risk of becoming an oppressive system. Under the rhetoric of human development the quality of family planning services should be improved, the status of women raised by better education and more employment opportunities, no discrimination, and better health services. The aim of United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) is to extend modern family planning services to 567 million couples, 59% of all married women of reproductive age, by the age 2000. The contraceptive needs of unmarried women have been ignored again, while the plight of unmarried pregnant women has probably increased by increasing violence and wars.