Indonesia fails to protect children's rights: Activists

Indonesia fails to protect children's rights: Activists

JAKARTA (JP): A member of the National Commission for Child
Protection (Komnas PA) reproached the government on Monday for
its failure to protect children, pointing to the fact that many
of them die each year of preventable diseases.

Irwanto of the Center of Community Development Studies at Atma
Jaya University charged that many of the policies concerning the
protection of children in the health and education fields were
merely slogans.

"To see the situation of children today is like opening a
wound that never heals," Irwanto said during a discussion held at
the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) office here.

As an example, Irwanto said that "the biggest causes of child
mortality are actually highly preventable diseases such as
diarrhea and acute respiratory infection."

Citing health ministry statistics, he said diarrhea accounted
for about one-third of deaths of infants under five-years old,
while acute respiratory infections accounted for 14 percent of
infant deaths on Java and 20 percent outside of Java.

Other sources of infant death include tetanus and various
infections.

Irwanto also said that malnutrition was sadly still a major
problem among children.

He then attacked the government's mandatory education program,
saying that it had only "managed to get children registered in
primary school (SD)."

He said statistics showing that only 60 percent of those
students would graduate clearly pointed out the reality of the
program.

He added that only 70 percent of those who graduate from
primary school would go on to junior high school, while from
those only 40 percent would actually continue to high school.

Many were prevented from continuing their education because of
lack of funds or were forced to help support the family by
finding work.

There are around 1.7 million children nationwide working in
hazardous places such as offshore fisheries and factories without
adequate protection, not to mention 70,000 underage sex workers,
he said.

"The law has not been protecting children's interests,"
Irwanto charged.

He said one legal deficiency was that the criminal code ruled
that anyone raping a woman above 15 years old could be sentenced
to jail for six to 12 years. But if a minor under 12 years old
was raped the sentence was less than six years.

"The law actually promotes child abuse," he remarked.

He said the commission would soon submit a draft bill on child
protection which would allow it to take custody of children
abused by their parents.

Irwanto said the draft would be brought to the legislature in
two weeks. (08)