RI to launch its second ambitious population scheme

By Santi WE Soekanto

In conjunction with National Family Day which falls today, President Soeharto is scheduled to launch the second phase of the 25-year-old National Family Planning Program. The Jakarta Post examined this development and interviewed the Program's architect, Minister of Population Haryono Suyono. The minister also commented on demands to review traditional family concepts on the basis of human rights.

JAKARTA (JP): In Pati, a small town in Pati regency in Central Java, it's a matter of pride to have the front side of one's house stenciled with a blue-circle with the initials KB (Keluarga Berencana-family planning) inside. It means that the residents are participants of the family planning program and use some kind of contraception.

Every several hundred meters, the same blue circle appears in almost every building, rice mill and village office; all serving as silent reminders for villagers to join the program. There are not so silent reminders, too, like midwives, "village cadres", and members of the Family Welfare Movement, PKK, who take it upon their shoulders to go door-to-door finding new "acceptors," as contraceptive users are called.

Young women volunteering to become extension workers in Kiaracondong subdistrict, Bandung, West Java, set aside one or two days each month to educate other women about the family planning program.

They use all forms of persuasion, from gently coaxing to pressure, in order to convince their peers to join family planning. "What? You're pregnant again? How are you going to feed all your children?" a woman volunteer was overheard saying to her neighbor.

Women in a Jakarta hospital discussed contraception the same way their mothers swapped recipes. "Oh, I can't stand using condoms," one woman exclaimed, without so much as a hint of embarrassment. "So I chose spiral (intra-uterine device) instead."

"Oh, spiral makes my period irregular, so I prefer Norplant," another replied.

These women are proof of a very marked social change which has been taking place over the last 25 years. Several years before President Soeharto initiated efforts to curb population growth in 1969, the common view was that "Indonesia is a large country, it will feed all its people."

The government persevered, managing to reduce the country's fertility rate from 5.605 in 1969 to today's 3.022 children per family.

The government wants the rate to drop even further, to an annual 2.6 percent by the end of the sixth Five-Year Development Plan in 1999.

In spite of various difficulties, including initial resistance from religious groups who believed that birth control violated their faith, the nation managed to reduce population growth from a potentially unsupportable 2.3 percent a year from 1971-1980 to 1.97 percent a year from 1980-1990.

Indonesia's population, which stood at 120 million in 1969, now stands at 189 million.

Second phase

The family planning movement was intended to create "small, happy and prosperous families." However, the first 25 years succeeded only in achieving the first part of the goal and rather neglected the quality of those small families, according to Minister of Population Haryono Suyono.

The government plans to use the coming 25 years to realize the happy and prosperous elements of the concept. In celebrating National Family Day today, President Soeharto is scheduled to launch the second phase of the movement, called the "small, prosperous families as agents and beneficiaries of development" movement.

"From now on, Indonesian families are entrusted with the task of not only developing themselves, but also the others," Haryono said.

He compared Indonesian families with American families which he said "are very individualistic in nature. For American families, one's achievement is one's alone to enjoy. They don't have to take care of others," he said.

"Indonesian families, on the contrary, have to pay some sort of alms, and are responsible for helping reduce the poverty of other families."

Indonesia's families will have to fulfill various responsibilities, including protecting the social and cultural environment, and developing their economic potential, he said.

As part of the campaign, the government has already begun a nationwide program to map and register Indonesia's 38 to 40 million families.

They will be classified into the categories of "pre- prosperous", "prosperous I" to "prosperous III" and "prosperous III-A."

Those who are still unable to meet their own basic, daily needs fall, of course, into the "pre-prosperous" category. "Prosperous III-A" families are able to meet their basic requirements, social and psychological needs, as well as participate in social activities.

A set of simple indicators has been prepared, including the amount of clothes a family member has and whether the family has a dirt-floor house or one with a cement floor.

"I know these indicators seem to be simple, but they are really workable," Haryono said.

Grassroots

One of the features of the first 25 years of the family planning movement was the relinquishing of the initiative to promote the program from the government to the people.

By establishing such a grassroots approach, community organizations such as PKK, Mothers' Club and Family Planning Post actively spread the program.

It was also these organizations which used pressure or persuasion to get prospective participants to join.

Haryono indicated that the new movement will also make use of this approach. "We are hoping to see that in the near future, people will help one another in cementing their dirt floor so that their prosperity rating can be elevated," he said.

The government is hoping that the movement will bring about something beyond mere physical development. "What we are aiming for is a change of attitude," Haryono said. "We want to see that houses with cement floors will make residents more conscious of hygiene and healthy living."

Through the movement, the government also wishes to encourage people to build their economic potentials, he said optimistically.

It is hoped, however, that the launching of the new movement will learn from past mistakes and take steps not to repeat them.

Coercion, which was used in the initial phase of the family planning movement by many parties, including local officials, should never be seen again if the government wants true popular participation.