High rate of maternal mortality deplored
High rate of maternal mortality deplored
JAKARTA (JP): President Soeharto said yesterday that women must be given greater access to health care, education and employment opportunities if they are to achieve equal partnership status with men.
The lack of access to health care is to blame for the country's present maternity mortality rate, which is the highest in Southeast Asia, he added.
"The number of women who die during pregnancy and labor is lamentable," the President said when opening a four-day national workshop discussing the equal partnership campaign for men and women.
The government hopes to reduce the maternal mortality rate to 225 per 100,000 births by 1999, compared with the 1994 level of 421 per 100,000 births.
Last December, Minister of Health Sujudi said that currently 75 women die during pregnancy or delivery every day.
Officials say one of the main causes of Indonesia's high maternal mortality rate is undernutrition among pregnant women, which they say is a result of ignorance combined with sociocultural, economic and geographical difficulties.
Soeharto said Indonesian girls and boys are expected to have equal access to education at all levels in about 25 years.
In the world of work, Indonesia has yet to create equal employment opportunities for men and women, the President said.
The workshop is a follow-up to the National Movement to Strengthen Equal Partnership Between Men and Women, which the President launched on Dec. 22 last year to coincide with Women's Day.
The national drive is the culmination of several action plans agreed to at the World Conference on Women in Beijing, China, last September.
The campaign hopes to improve human resources, accelerate development and better the welfare of Indonesian women.
Soeharto asked men to help make the drive a success, adding that the values of equal partnership should be instilled in children as well.
"Parents should not teach, intentionally or otherwise, gender discrimination," he said.
Minister of Women's Roles Mien Sugandhi voiced concern on Sunday that Indonesia's political landscape is dominated by men even though the majority of Indonesia's 195 million people is female.
She pointed out that only 12.6 percent of the 1,000 politicians in the House of Representatives and the People's Consultative Assembly are women.
"Ideally, the women-men proportion should be 35:65 percent. We don't want to insist on a 50:50 proportion but women's proportion should be higher than it is now," she said.
Mien said Indonesia should do away with its traditional perceptions which consider women inferior to men.
"Men generally don't like to see women progress. A lot of husbands don't want to see their wives more intelligent than them," she said. (pan)