Male Call
Family Planning Day is celebrated every June 29. Once the New Order's success story, family planning today has all but vanished in many regions. But the alarmingly rapid population growth in Indonesia is reviving the program once more. The government is now cranking up its family planning program, with a new twist-focusing on the male contraceptive. To be sure, the level of male participation in family planning programs is still very low, only 1.5 percent, according to the 2007 Population and Demographic Survey. Yet, the male contraceptive is seen to be a more effective and lasting way of controlling births.Tempo English Edition reports from North Sulawesi, Gorontalo and West Sulawesi.
June 29, 2011
FROM outside the windows of the National Population and Family Planning Board (BKKBN) office in Gorontalo, its employees could be seen busy doing their jobs. On the terrace outside the building, Amir Udopo, 41, a resident of Manawa village in Pohuwato regency, was gazing nervously at the small fish in a pond. Together with three others, he was awaiting his turn for a vasectomy.
Not long afterwards Amir was called to a blue van beside the offices.
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