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Kupang. Two hundred women from Belu district in East Nusa Tenggara underwent free tubal ligation surgery on Wednesday and Thursday, as part of the provincial administration’s family planning campaign.

The women, all mothers between the ages of 26 and 40, had the operation at the Navy Hospital in Kupang, the provincial capital.

Andreas Assan, from the provincial office of the National Family Planning Coordinating Board (BKKBN), said each operation took just 15 minutes.

He added that the women were a little groggy following the procedure because of the lingering effects of the anaesthetic, but were otherwise fine.

The family planning board, he said, organized the free sterilization program in a bid to stem what the administration considers a high population growth rate of 1.6 percent a year.

Andreas said the administration planned to perform tubal ligation on a total of 2,700 mothers in the province this year.

Meliana Abu, 40, who underwent the procedure, said she had six children and did not want any more because of the high cost of childbirth and of raising children.

She said the BKKBN had touted vasectomies as another permanent method of birth control, but that she had opted for tubal ligation because she did not want to make her husband go through the procedure.

Martha Seran, 38, said she volunteered for the free tubal ligation because she had five children and could not afford to raise more on her husband’s meager earnings as a farmer.