Mortality rate still high: Minister

Mortality rate still high: Minister

PEKANBARU: The quality of life for Indonesian women is still
rated the lowest among the Association of the South East Asian
Nations (ASEAN), with women's death rates during child birth
reaching their highest levels.

State Minister of Women's Affairs Sri Redjeki Soemaryoto
confirmed the poor quality of life for Indonesian women during a
function held in Pekanbaru on Saturday.

She said that mortality rates during labor had reached 373 per
100,000 women each year which equated to about 15,000 deaths.

"The education level of our women is also left far behind
compared to that of men. Some 39 percent of women do not go to
school and only 13 percent of them have graduated from secondary
schools, while only 5 percent have finished university
education," said Sri Redjeki.

She explained that 50.3 percent of the total Indonesian
population of 210 million were women but only 51.2 percent of
that total number could get jobs and even then mostly informal
work with low wages. -- Antara