Jakarta – Indonesia should make greater effort to protect children in the country, even though it has made significant, life-saving progress on children's rights and welfare over the past decades, a UNICEF representative has said.
"Indonesia's commitment to provide children with a fair chance in life has grown increasingly strong. When the world agreed on the Agenda 2030 a year ago, Indonesia already had integrated many of the related Sustainable Development Goals [SDGs] that relate to children in its Medium-Term Development Plan [RPJMN]," said UNICEF Representative Gunilla Olsson to mark Universal Children's Day, which falls on Sunday.
According to UNICEF, Indonesia has recorded tremendous progress on the protection of children's rights since its adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in 1989. Indonesia was one of the first countries to sign the convention on Jan. 26, 1990, after it was adopted by the UN General Assembly on Nov. 20, 1989.
The mortality rate for children under the age of 5, for instance, has been slashed by more than half, saving more than 5 million children, who would have died had the rate remained at 1990 levels. Almost 98 percent of children aged 7 to 12 attend primary school, and extreme poverty has been significantly reduced.
However, UNICEF says, many of the challenges that frustrate progress on children's rights globally, where nearly 6 million children still die every year from preventable causes, and where the poorest children are twice as likely to die before their fifth birthday compared to the wealthiest, continue to hamper progress in Indonesia.
"Too many children are still excluded," said Olsson. "Sustainable development needs to start with children." (ebf)