The
Indonesian government and the House of Representatives are mulling creating a
legislation on population growth control to gear up efforts to revitalize the
country's long-stalled family planning program, a senior family planning official
says.
Sugiri Syarief, the head of Na-tional
Demography and Family Planning Agency (BKKBN), said on Monday that despite
achievements during the last three years, rapid population growth remained a
problem in Indonesia partly due to prolonged neglect of the family planning
program in regions and at the local level.
If the law were established, he said, local
governments would hopefully be far more committed to controlling the currently
high rate of population growth in the country.
"I'm sure it will greatly affect the
implementation of our family planning program, providing us with a breakthrough
to revitalize this long-stagnated movement," Sugiri told journalists after
attending a hearing with Commission IX overseeing health, labor and social affairs
at the House of Representatives.
Part of the problem is that regional
governments do not prioritize family planning programs.
He said that the new bill would provide
regional governments with a set of guidelines for implementing a credible
family planning program.
However, he said, it could take a long time
for the bill to be passed into law.
"It may take three years. We will first
develop an academic paper on the draft law," he added.
According to the Central Statistics Agency
(BPS), Indonesia's population reached 237.6 million in 2010; an increase of
32.5 million people since 2000, which gives an average annual population growth
rate over the past 10 years of 1.49 percent.
To cope with this high rate, the BKKBN is
targeting to increase the country's contraceptive rate (CPR) to 72 percent in
2014 from the current 61.4 percent in 2011. Sugiri said that the establishment
of the 2009 Law on Population and Family Development had authorized the
decentralization of family planning programs in the country.
Many local government heads, he said, had paid
too little attention to family planning programs in their regions.
Sonny Harry B. Harmadhi, head of the Institute
of Demography at the University of Indonesia's School of Economics, said that
establishing a law on population growth control was not a proper solution to
deal with Indonesia's ongoing population explosion.
"I really agree that we must revitalize
the national family planning movement. Instead of establishing a law on
population growth control, however, it is much more important for us to educate
people on the importance of family planning," he told The Jakarta Post.
Instead of imposing tougher regulations on
population growth control, he said, the government should create more awareness
about family planning at the local level. "I'm worried that such a law
would only create unnecessary pressures on local governments," he said.
Subagyo Partodiharjo, a member of Commission
IX and the Democratic Party faction, said that it was important not only to
teach birth control, but also to limit the number of children people could
have.
"Childbirth control and limitation are
totally different. By controlling childbirth, we may still have a lot of
children although with a far greater distance between births.
"But by limiting the number of children
in our family, we will have a smaller family, which is important for the sake
of our prosperity," he said.
Indonesian govt consider bill to control
population growth
Elly Burhaini Faizal in Jakarta/The Jakarta
Post | ANN
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