Indonesia wins mixed review from Unicef

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia has made impressive strides in combating illiteracy and the child mortality rate but it is lagging behind other developing countries in fighting maternal deaths, the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) says.

In its latest annual report, the UN agency puts Indonesia, along with other populous, developing nations like China, Egypt and Mexico, as being within target rates for providing full primary education for at least 80 percent of all children.

Women's literacy is reported to have increased from 42 percent in 1970 to 75 percent in 1990, one of the most sizable jumps in the world, the report says.

The Progress of Nations puts Indonesia among 17 developing countries which are successfully fighting a massive campaign to reduce vitamin A deficiencies among children. This deficiency raises the chances of child mortality by as much as 25 percent and is a major cause of blindness.

Unicef's Indonesian vice chairman Bijan Sharif stated yesterday that because of its mass efforts to combat the vitamin A deficiency, Indonesia will receive the Hellen Keller Award. This will be presented to President Soeharto on July 23 to coincide with National Children's Day.

The annual report also considers Indonesia successful, or at least on the right track, in dealing with family planning. Indonesia ranked third most successful developing countries after China and South Korea in family planning programs.

However the report notes that Indonesia has not yet dealt with widespread iodine deficiencies, which is the world's leading cause of mental retardation. It noted that Indonesia has simply planned to iodinize salt but has not put it into action.

Sharif however pointed out that the report was based on old data and that Indonesia has not embarked on a major program to fortify edible salt with iodine.

He told a press conference that Indonesia should now address the question of the high maternal death rates -- currently at 450 per 100,000 births. "Indonesia is just above India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nigeria but well below Brazil, Vietnam, Mexico, Philippines and China.

"This is a very important thing that the government is very concerned about. Unicef is trying to help work it out because it's going to be an issue," Sharif said. However, he added a reminder that Unicef had limited funds to finance its activities in Indonesia.

Unicef's budget this year is about US$15 million, or almost US$2 million below last year's.

On the cause of the high rate of maternal mortality, Sharif said "it's because women in the villages still depend heavily on dukun bayi (traditional midwives) although the government has institutionalized the program of bidan desa (village midwives)."

Pregnant woman

The highest-risk group of maternal deaths are pregnant women who are about to bear children. The best solution is to bring them to hospitals that have operating facilities, oxygen and anesthesia.

"But again, mothers still prefer dukun bayi. It takes at least five years to make them feel comfortable with modern midwives. So, what we're trying to do is some sort of cooperation between dukun bayi and bidan desa," Sharif stated.

The other issue Indonesia needs to address is the problem of working children, which is still widespread in big cities. Sharif noted that the government was already aware of the problem.

"Wardiman (Djojonegoro, the minister of education and culture) is trying to make education accessible for these children," Sharif said.

Dealing with the issue, Sharif noted that Unicef, in cooperation with Jakarta-based Atma Jaya University, has conducted a survey on working children in three cities: Jakarta, Surabaya and Semarang. The research's results will be presented to the government for consideration. (11)