JP/4/ICPD
The Jakarta Post Jakarta
The country needs to revise legal rulings, allocate funding, and establish clear organizational structure in implementing recommendations from the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD+5) to address its population problems, a discussion concluded on Tuesday.
ICPD+5 is the review of the 1994 ICPD recommendations in Cairo, Egypt which required countries signing the regulations to implement them in national policies.
Such policies should cover poverty eradication, education prioritizing girls and women, gender equity and equality, the reduction of infant and maternal mortality rate, reproductive health including programs on fighting AIDS epidemic, food security, human rights protection, and environment preservation.
Suko Bandiyono, demography expert at National Institute of Sciences (LIPI), said in the seminar that the revision of Law. No. 10/1992 on the Development of Population and Welfare Family was needed to accomodate the latest progress in population issues and to accomodate ICPD+5 recommendations.
"The law does not cover single parent family. The norms of small family in the law is no longer relevant because we need family with good quality," he said.
The country also shows each year that some 40 infants die in every 1,000 live births.
The law also has no articles supporting women empowerment, children and the handicapped's rights, reproductive rights, and gender equality and equity.
Currently, Indonesia is the home of some 56 million poor people and its maternal mortality rate is 373 per 100,000 live births, ten times higher than Thailand, 11 times higher than Malaysia, and 75 times higher than Singapore.
The country also shows each year that some 40 infants die in every 1,000 live births.
Another speaker, Siswanto Agus Wilopo, deputy of Family Planning and Reproductive Health at the National Family Planning Board (BKKBN), said that combination between sufficient fund and clear organizational structure have proven the success of population programs.
"The presence of both elements prove that government has political will in addressing the population problems. However, we don't have a ministry of population right now and the fund source is also limited. Maybe the issue of population is not attractive for the government," he said.
Nesim Tumkaya, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Representative to Indonesia said that the country should make quick policies to tackle adverse population problems, especially in fighting the AIDS epidemic.
"This threat is a serious one; there are some estimated 120,000 cases now. You may consider it as low prevalence but it is rapidly rising. There is possibility of million people will be infected in the immediate future,"