Devi Asmarani, Jakarta – A baby boom is looming large in Indonesia with its much-touted population control programme losing pace due to budget cuts and decreasing foreign aid, following the 1998 fall of the Suharto regime.
Once hailed as one of the world's most successful policies, Indonesia's family planning programme is no longer a priority for a government that has been grappling with other pressing political and economic issues in the past six years.
Officials and population experts are worried that, at the current birth rate of 1.5 per cent a year, the country's 206-million-strong population will reach 249 million in 10 years, with most of the babies being born to poor families.
"Every year, between three and four million babies are born, about the same as the whole population of Singapore," Mr Ispin Husni, the spokesman for the National Family Planning Board (BKKBN), told The Straits Times.
Although the birth rate has been in decline since the start of the family planning programme in 1970, many are concerned over the fact that women from lower economic backgrounds have less access to contraceptives, especially since the economic crisis began in 1997.
A recent demographic and health survey shows that women from poor families on average give birth to three children during their reproductive age, compared to the two children born to middle and high-income families.
Reports have also shown that more women had given birth to unwanted babies. Abortion cases, which are most often not done by medical doctors, soared to about two million a year from about 750,000 a decade ago. Nearly 6,000 women died from the procedure every year.
Free contraceptives for the poor have been in short supply since the country was hit by the economic crisis. The government can only provide 15 per cent of the supply, with the rest provided by foreign donors. But some of these donors have since cut their funding for the country significantly.
Furthermore, unlike the intensive social awareness campaigns done by the Suharto regime, the drive for better reproductive health and the use of contraceptives has nearly ground to a halt because of the lack of funding.
The ubiquitous "Two children, boys or girls" campaign slogan made famous by the Suharto administration had helped send the number of contraceptive users soaring from 500,000 in 1970 to 15 million people in 15 years.
Adding to the problem is the decentralisation of power, which shifted the central government's role in population control policy to regional administrations. "Every region has different sets of priorities; in some regions, population control is hardly an issue," said Mr Ispin.
But officials and experts said the lack of interest among political leaders in acknowledging and addressing population woes has worsened the problems. Many politicians have been reluctant to continue the family planning policy that is seen as a Suharto legacy.
In a speech to a group of Muslim clerics last year, Vice-President Hamzah Haz, who has three wives and 13 children, even called for an end to the family planning programme, saying that 'it is no longer important'.
Said Mr Ispin: "If the policymakers continue to neglect this problem, we will likely experience another baby boom."