Jakarta – The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) representative to Indonesia, Gianfranco Rotiglioni, asked the Indonesian government Tuesday to continue efforts to advance gender equality by providing women greater access to education, economic opportunities and reproductive healthcare, and eradicating sexual exploitation.
"Interventions in these areas will have immediate practical benefits to women and society," he said at the release of the UNICEF 2007 Report on the State of the World's Children at the State Ministry for Women's Empowerment in Central Jakarta.
Rotiglioni said Indonesia had achieved overall good progress toward gender parity in net enrollment at the primary and junior high school levels. However, access to education for girls becomes increasingly limited as they go on to higher levels of study.
He cited barriers to achieving gender equality in education in Indonesia, including early marriage, gender-biased textbooks, gender stereotyping, and unreliable data.
He warned that women and girls in Indonesia would remain vulnerable to sexual exploitation and trafficking if programs were not carried out to address the problems of poverty, poor education and the inability to make a good living.
"This feeds back into access to education. If we can ensure that children, especially girls, attend schools, they will later be better able to support themselves and become less vulnerable to traffickers and exploiters," he said.
UNICEF communication officer Kendartanti Subroto said Tuesday that birth registration was another key to eradicating the trafficking and exploitation of women and girls. "Birth registration will make them legally protected, and it should be universal and compulsory," she told The Jakarta Post.
Kendartanti said UNICEF had been working with the Ministry of Home Affairs and the State Ministry for Women's Empowerment on a birth certificate project for the past few years. The data from the most recent national survey of social and economic conditions showed that only four out of 10 children had their births registered.
She said UNICEF had also supported Health Ministry programs to provide training for midwives and medical professionals in reproductive healthcare. High-quality healthcare is pivotal to decreasing the country's maternal mortality rate of 307 per 100,000 live births, the highest among Southeast Asian countries.
In its 2007 Report on the State of the World's Children, UNICEF says gender equality produces dividends for both women and children, and is pivotal to health and development.
The report finds that empowering women and eliminating discrimination produces a positive impact on the survival and well-being of children.
It also says that when women are empowered, children and families prosper, because empowered women have a bigger influence over key decisions that can improve their lives.