Population growth continues to slow while the issue of family planning has come to occupy the minds of presidents and clerics alike.

The Demography Institute of University of Indonesia (UI) predicts that the rate of growth in the population will have fallen to 1% by around 2020, and that by 2025 the population will be about 275 million people. The population in July 2002 was estimated at 231 million and this year’s rate of growth is believed to be 1.3%.

The total fertility rate (TFR) of women in Indonesia in 1997 was 2.78 children per woman, fell to 2.3 in 2000, and is currently at 2.2. For a population to maintain its numbers, without growing or declining, TFR needs to be at 2.1 births per woman. antara

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono says that the 1.3% figure this year is too high and puts a strain on the country’s ability to provide enough food, health care, and jobs. SBY said that when he went travelling about the countryside he was always struck by the number of youngsters running about.

I found so many children there, and I think about their education, health, jobs and so on.

He urged the relevant authorities to re-stress the importance of family planning. antara

It is estimated that in 2003 60% of Indonesian couples employed some method of artificial contraception (KB), up from 50% in 1997. However there are some who complain that under the administration of SBY the family planning issue has received little government interest. Dr Rahmat Santika worries about a population explosion under the reign of Yudhoyono. antara

Meanwhile the Muslim clerical body, Majelis Ulama Indonesia (MUI), says vasectomy for men and tubectomy for women are not forbidden according to Islam provided the procedures are reversible. It seems that the tube tying issue had been a matter of some debate among clerics, with many fearing that the procedures led to permanent sterility, and in general, some Muslim clerics seem to often worry about organised, sinister, attempts to make Muslims infertile.

However according to BUPA UK bupa:

Although there is an operation that can reverse a vasectomy, the procedure fails in about 60% of cases. Any man who chooses to have a vasectomy should consider it irreversible.

Nurhadi Siswoyo, an academic at the University of Indonesia in demography, says that according to figures calculated by the state family planning agency (BKKBN) in 2003 0.6% of Indonesian men were known to have undergone vasectomies. Separately, a study done at Kendal, Central Java, found that of the 160,836 fertile couples registered with the BKKBN there 2,605 men, or 1.6%, had had vasectomies.

The head of the fatwa commission of the MUI, Ma’ruf Amien, went on to say that his body supported the government’s family planning program provided its measures were within the bounds of sharia law. antara

Meanwhile in Malang it is said that the low participation rate of couples in family planning programs in the East Java provincial town is due to womens’ fears that their husbands will become unfaithful if they have easy access to condoms, or have vasectomies. Men are also reported to be unwilling to use contraception, for predictable reasons. On average Malang couples have four children. mediaindo