Another form of genocide
The promotion of "population control" by governments, banks and many "aid" organisations has had a dire effect on great numbers of the world's women. In many Third World countries, "family planning" comes in the form of forced sterilisation of women. It has been implemented so thoroughly by the Indonesian regime in East Timor that in 1989, Suharto won the UN population prize. This is a tragic example of how "population control" can be used by repressive regimes to further their own political interests.
A Timorese exile living in Canada talked about her experience of forced sterilisation: "Because of the obligatory birth control measures, every six months the soldiers would go to all secondary schools looking for girls. They used to come, lock the door and give us an injection. We did not know what was going on. We had no right to ask anything. Now, we cannot have any children.
"After going to all the schools, the soldiers would go to the villages and give injections to the women they found there. All women had to take part in this. The soldiers did not know whether they had seen us before so just gave us another injection. Consequently, some women were even injected three times."
The Indonesian regime's Planned Parenthood Program was in force throughout the 1980s to control population growth among the Timorese. Between 1985 and 1990, 95,000 women were targeted; it is estimated that 80% of these women have been forcibly sterilised.
The former bishop of Dili, Costa Lopes, reported that women were being sterilised without their consent while they were in hospital, either giving birth or undergoing surgery. This is one of the reasons Timorese women avoid giving birth in a hospital.
This program is not a response to "over-population" in East Timor. It is a form of genocide and part of a deliberate strategy by the regime to integrate East Timor into Indonesia. It is being carried out in conjunction with the transmigration of Indonesians into East Timor. The Indonesian minister of transmigration has said, "In order to integrate all the ethnic groups within one single nation, the different ethnic groups will disappear in time as a result of integration, and there will be just one kind of man".
Apart from the basic denial of human rights this goal involves, if the Timorese population becomes a minority within its own country, it will make the task of winning independence even more difficult.
An outrageous aspect of this is the amount of support Indonesia has been given by international organisations like the UN and World Bank, which sponsored a "family planning" centre in Dili in 1985.
Birth rates drop naturally where women have a measure of economic security and control over their reproductive functions: better standards of living; social, economic and political equality; and improved education. There is no excuse for the violation and coercion of women.
All women should have access to birth control information and devices, and the right to make their own decisions about reproduction. Too often in the Third World, it is not a matter of choice.
By Trish Corcoran