TheJakartaPost
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Penal code draft bars youth participation in health
The National Family Planning Agency reports that around 27 percent of adolescents have dated before they reach 15. Among male adolescents, 25 percent admitted to using condoms during their first sexual experience.
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Reproductive health education can no longer be considered taboo. (Shutterstock/BlurryMe)
T
he proposed revised draft for the Indonesian Criminal Code (RKUHP) has been heavily criticized for discriminating against certain groups, including young people. Policymakers, confused by their strong intention to protect citizens, have ended up violating the reproductive health rights of the youth instead — or 26 percent of the population of 260 million.
With a population growth rate of 1.49 percent per year, Indonesia’s population will reach 450 million by 2045.
Ranked 108th out of 187 in the Human Development Index, Indonesia must strategize on improving human development outcomes in its early stages. Essential to this is reproductive health, which profoundly affects men and women’s health from infancy to old age — just one crucial issue to reflect on as we approach World Health Day on April 7.
The World Health Organization says health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, not merely the absence of disease or infirmity, reproductive health addresses the reproductive processes, functions and system at all stages of life.
