“The participants are Filipino youth leaders from various backgrounds: NGOs, government and local communities. They are learning from Indonesia and exchanging knowledge about how Muslim leaders can take a role in family planning, reproductive health and other gender issues including early marriage, especially in Lombok,” Rika Kiswardani, the head of Foreign Technical Cooperation Bureau of the State Secretariat, said on Monday. “This event is a South-to-South cooperation between Indonesia and the Philippines,” she said.

Rika said Lombok, known as the Island of a Thousand Mosques, was chosen because the role of religious leaders in family planning campaigns is significant.

The head of the National Demography and Family Planning Agency in NTB, Lalu Makrupuddin, said the 16 participants from the Philippines would visit the Islamic boarding school Nurul Hakim in West Lombok, which already has a reproductive health clinic for teenagers.

“They will also visit Lingsar health community center, which has an active family planning unit, and several high schools in the regency,” he said.

Lalu said early marriage in NTB was high, 58 percent of marriages in the province involving at least one underage partner. The national average is 50 percent, he said. (evi)

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