Chinese in Singkawang support family planning
Chinese in Singkawang support family planning
Text and photos by Lewa Pardomuan
SINGKAWANG, W. Kalimantan (JP): An old Chinese saying states,
"The more children you have the wealthier you will be."
Although most Indonesians now believe that a small family has
two children, the Indonesian-Chinese in Singkawang and the
neighboring districts prefer to have three or four children. They
say that having only two does not seem to be enough.
Now that the idea is gradually disappearing, many Indonesians
of Chinese descent believe that the more children they have the
more suffering they will face.
The new view has flourished among the people following their
acceptance of the birth control program which was for a long time
regarded as taboo.
A popular belief, "Problems behind mosquito nets are the
business of husbands and wives," has also lost its meaning.
Hardship is among the factors which has made the Chinese here
think twice before deciding to have big families. Having a small
family means better education and food for the children.
The people, long known for their reluctance to use birth
control, have turned out to be the active participants in the
government sponsored Family Parenthood Program.
The Chinese living in Singkawang, the capital of Sambas
regency, constitute 54 percent of the 75,000 population. The
affluent are found in business offices, shops and markets, while
the poor work at the pepper, rubber and orange plantations, are
fishermen or work for timber companies, and mainly live on the
outskirts or in the villages.
About 70 percent of the Chinese in Sambas have jobs other than
trading.
In West Kalimantan, the Chinese make up 14 percent of the
population and are regarded as indigenous along with the Dayak
(41 percent) and Malay (39 percent).
The people's participation in the program in 13 districts in
Sambas regency ranges between 20 percents and 75 percent of the
Indonesian-Chinese in each area.
Abdul Gafar, field coordinator of the Sambas office of the
National Family Planning Coordination Board (BKKBN) told The
Jakarta Post recently that the authorities did not coerce the
Chinese into taking part in the birth control program.
"There is no intention to restrict the number of Indonesian-
Chinese here, just to stop them from doing business," he said.
Funeral
Gafar said that the program entered Singkawang as early as
1974 but it was not until 1987 that the Chinese were approached.
With special programs, the office intensified its efforts in
1990 to encourage the people to join the family planning program.
The office allocates Rp 350,000 each year to organize the annual
meeting.
BKKBN approached funeral agencies for permission to use their
premises as meeting places because of the population's deference
to them.
Gafar said the campaigns used to receive lukewarm response
because the Chinese claimed that they did not have time to leave
their businesses, but when the funeral agencies became involved
the response improved, he said.
The people's high respect for the funeral agencies is obvious
because those who can't attend the meeting are willing to pay a
kind of "fine", he added.
He said that language problems have also been overcome by
involving campaigners of Chinese descent especially when
organizing in the rural areas.
Gafar said that the involvement of the Chinese in the campaign
had been proven to be effective. In the past, the non-Chinese
campaigners who organized door-to-door campaigns were often
mistaken as tax collectors, he added.
He said the younger people are also encouraged to be better
informed by organizing speech contests about family planning.
Lili Bastian, a trained midwife who is also a campaigner, said
that in the past many women believed that contraception pills or
injections would cause womb cancer. Now that the people's
knowledge of the family planning program is better, such fears
have disappeared.
Lili, herself a Chinese-descendant, acknowledged that the
husband's parents also played an important role in the decision
on whether their daughter-in-laws should take part in the program
because many couples still live with their parents.
"Not many fall into this category because many have become
independent," she added.
Lili said that the campaigns also aim to change husbands'
worry that sterilization would create a kind of "emptiness" when
having sex with their wives.
Bong Cin Nen, a young campaigner, said that the door-to-door
campaigns were the most effective way to introduce the family
planning program to the local people. These campaigns, he said,
enable the campaigners and the people to have a thorough
discussion about the program.
Bong said that fathers must also be convinced about the
benefit of taking part in the program because they also have a
say in every decision involving family life.
Important
Bong, who graduated from senior high school in 1987, said the
fact that many Chinese in the regency are poor was why birth
control was deemed necessary.
Bong Wui Kong, a member of the Sambas Council, told the Post
that the family planning program was a success. The prevailing
problem, he said, was how to reach the people living in the rural
areas who could not attend the campaign because they work all
day.
Some people in rural areas still believe that using
contraception is taboo and that unscrupulous officials often
overcharge the program participants, he added.
Lili explained that sterilization was among the birth control
methods used in the program, but said that it was only encouraged
for women of a certain age who have certain number of children.
She said that injection, intra-uterine device (IUD) and the pill
are the most popular means of birth control.
She said that the pill is the favorite because injection
sometimes led to bleeding while IUDs can be painful.
Lili said that family planning here could mean having four
children rather than the recommended two.
"Having two children is often considered not sufficient. The
people think that it would be better for them to have three or
four because if one of the children dies they still have the
others," she said.