Smoking Among Minors Still a Major Problem in Indonesia

On a Sunday morning, Effendi prepared to open his warung , or roadside grocery stall, in South Jakarta.

As soon as he did, two boys, aged about 14, came up to buy a pack of cigarettes. Effendi handed them the pack and took their money, no questions asked.

When he was later told that selling cigarettes to minors was prohibited under a regulation issued last year, Effendi looked genuinely surprised.

"Really? I never heard such thing. Those boys could have been buying the cigarettes for their parents. There's no way for me to find out if they intend to smoke it themselves," he told Jakarta Globe.

"What's the punishment for the violation?" he added.

He looked relieved when told that despite the regulation, there were no serious consequence for violators. However, he said that if stricter sanctions were imposed, he would gladly comply with the rules.

"I don't mind asking people to show me their ID card if there is a clear regulation, but since there is no punishment it's hard to imagine people would care, let alone comply," Effendi said.

It was a different story at a nearby convenience store, where a female cashier asked a customer for his ID before she would sell him a pack of cigarettes.

"Our store is part of an international chain, so we have to comply with the regulation," she said.

The cashier, who declined to be named, said she only asked for ID from anyone who looked too young to smoke.

"If they look old enough we rarely asked them to show us their ID, or if they're way too young to be 18 I'll just refuse to sell them any cigarettes," she said.

Weak prohibition

The government regulation in question, issued a year ago this month, stipulates that selling cigarettes to children and pregnant women are prohibited. However, there is no mention of punishment for those flouting the ban.

"The prohibition is too weak to be called a regulation; it's a mere suggestion since there is no punishment involved for the violators," says Arist Merdeka Sirait, the chairman of the National Commission for Child Protection (Komnas Anak).

He notes that even among convenience stores, compliance with the regulation remains lax.

"Only some of the international chain stores will comply with policies that their headquarters have established, but most local convenience stores won't even bother to ask a thing," he said.

Indonesia has no mandatory minimum age for purchasing or smoking cigarettes., which are sold freely with no checks on buyers' ages. At warungs, cigarettes can be bought by the stick rather than in packs, making them even more affordable for children.

"Selling cigarettes to minors should constitute a punishable crime. That's what we need to do if we want to save our children," Arist said.

He said the government and legislators must revise the "lenient" 2012 government regulation on tobacco control and adopt the practices implemented successfully in another countries, such as Singapore and Thailand.

In Singapore, stores or vendors can lose their licenses for selling cigarettes to anyone under the age of 18.

Arist emphasized that children should not be punished for smoking, but that adults should be held responsible for preventing children from taking up the habit by refusing to sell them cigarettes in the first place.

Last year, Komnas Anak filed a class-action lawsuit against the cigarette industry and the government for failing to protect children from smoking.

The lawsuit rests on medical records and psychological exams of children addicted to smoking.

One of them, Ilham, a 9-year-old boy from Sukabumi in West Java, required a year of intense therapy to recover from his addiction, which began when he was just four years old.

Whenever he felt the urge to smoke, Arist said, Ilham would become aggressive and self-destructive, banging his head against the wall if he was denied.

Seto Mulyadi, a noted child psychologist and adviser to the Indonesian Commission for Child Protection (KPAI), echoed the same sentiment, saying the lack of a smoking age limit in Indonesia had given the country a reputation as a "baby-smoking country."

"I once gave therapy for a baby smoker, and it deeply concerned me," Seto said. He said that in addition to a smoking age limit, the government needed to implement other measures to prevent children from smoking, including banning all types of cigarette advertisements, promotions and event sponsorships by tobacco firms.

At the same time, he said, the government should provide a campaign focusing on the danger of cigarettes.

Cigarette exposure

Smoking children, adults who smoke in public places, street vendors selling cigarettes anywhere with no restrictions, and a relentless barrage of cigarette commercials televised nationally while children are watching are only a few of the problems Indonesia is currently dealing with because of lax tobacco regulations.

Even though the 2002 Broadcasting Law prohibits cigarette ads on television from being aired before 9:30 p.m., cigarette companies use many other methods to promote their products before then.

According to the World Health Organization, three of every four Indonesian children between the ages of 13 and 15 are exposed to cigarette ads on billboards and pro-tobacco messages at sports events.

A Komnas Anak study in 2012 also found 93 percent of Indonesian children were exposed to cigarette ads on television, while 50 percent regularly saw cigarette ads on outdoor billboards and banners.

According to 2010 data released by the Tobacco Control Support Center of the Indonesian Health Experts Association (Iakmi), smoking kills 235,000 Indonesians annually, while secondhand smoking claims 25,000 lives a year.

The lax smoking regulation in Indonesia has long been associated with the country's reluctance to ratify the WHO's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

The convention, already signed by 168 countries, calls for a ban on all forms of tobacco advertising and sponsorship. It also suggests plastering pictorial warnings across at least 30 percent of the surface area of cigarette packs, and increasing the tobacco excise.

Indonesia remains the only country in the Asia-Pacific region that has not ratified the treaty, despite being one of the most active countries in drafting the document in 2003, and one of only three countries in the world that still allows cigarette ads to run on television.

Most countries that have ratified the treaty have also set limits on the smoking age, purchasing age, or both.

Indonesia has been urged by the international community to accede to the FCTC to control the fast-growing smoking habit in the country, and while the government has repeatedly stated its commitment to adopting the FCTC's principles, it has made no significant effort to do so.

The matter of Indonesia's reluctance to accede was brought up during the 4th Islamic Conference of Health Ministers, held in Jakarta in October.

One of the 40 resolutions adopted by delegates at the conference was to "encourage the member states to take steps on speedy ratification of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, if not done so, and improve the implementation of all MPOWER measures."

MPOWER is a package of six tobacco-control measures that WHO says can "reverse the tobacco epidemic and prevent millions of tobacco-related deaths."

Of the 57 countries that make up the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, only Indonesia and Somalia have not to acceded the FCTC.

"Considering Somalia has practically no government, the message is clearly directed to Indonesia and this is embarrassing," Tara Singh Bam, a technical adviser at the Tobacco Control International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease, or Union, told the Globe.

The OIC conference also highlighted the importance of ratifying WHO protocols to eliminate the illicit trade in tobacco products and encouraged member states not to host tobacco trade fairs.

Indonesia has been widely criticized for agreeing to host World Tobacco Asia forum, slated to be held in Nusa Dua, Bali, next year. The forum showcases tobacco products and provides an opportunity for tobacco industry professionals in the Asia-Pacific region to network.

The convention, which has been rejected in many countries, notes on its official website the opportunity to invest in the tobacco industry in Indonesia because of its lucrative market and lax regulation on tobacco control.

Indonesia also has some of the cheapest tobacco prices in the world, making cigarettes affordable even for the poorest households. A pack of 20 Marlboros sells here for $1.30, including tax, compared to $9.70 in Singapore and $3.20 in Malaysia, according to cigaretteprices.net. The same product in Australia, which has some of the most stringent anti-tobacco rules in the world, sells for $17.70.

Agung Laksono, the coordinating minister for people's welfare, has called on the Trade Ministry, the Finance Ministry and the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry to stop thwarting the Health Ministry's efforts to accelerate the FCTC accession. The three ministries have promised to support the move.

However, Trade Minister Gita Wirjawan recently said he had sent a letter to the WHO on preventing any negative fallout to trade partners and investors as a result of the accession. Gita said the FCTC was not just about health issues, but implicated the well-being of tobacco farmers and the tobacco industry.

Smoking: A rights violation?

The WHO estimated that in 2011, some six million people worldwide died of smoking-related causes. The largest toll was in China, which recorded 1.2 million deaths from tobacco-related illnesses.

In Indonesia, 190,260 people died of tobacco-related cases, according to a 2010 Health Ministry report.

The WHO's 2011 Global Adult Tobacco Survey released last year showed that 67.4 percent of adult males and 4.5 percent of adult females in Indonesia were active smokers, while more than 90 million Indonesians were constantly exposed to secondhand smoking, which poses an even bigger health risk.

"If the government does still not take steps to accede to the FCTC, we can safely assume that our government has ignored and violated the right to live of every one of its citizens," said Ifdhal Kasim, a former chairman of the National Commission for Human Rights (Komnas HAM) and a tobacco control activist. "In addition, the government has also violated the law.

"Smoking affects the quality of our human resources. If we let this persist, the next generation is at stake. Our nation is at stake," Ifdhal said.

The Health Ministry has repeatedly made the case that signing up to the FCTC will not hurt the livelihoods of workers in the tobacco industry, and in fact will lead to an improvement in their welfare by better regulating the industry.

Amidhan, the head of halal products at the Indonesian Council of Ulema (MUI), the country's highest Islamic authority, said that although smoking is not prohibited under Islam, secondhand smoke can be considered harmful to others and therefore liable to a religious ban.

"There is nothing in the Holy Koran that says smoking is a sinful act," he said.

"However, if it disrupts other people's rights in public areas, which it clearly does, and if it endangers children's health at home, then it becomes strictly forbidden and illicit."

source: www.thejakartaglobe.com