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petition has been launched calling on President Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo to ratify the UN'€™s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), which was passed to prevent the tobacco industry from targeting children.

The petition, which went online on Saturday at www.change.org/DukungFCTC or http://www.kompak.co/fctc/, was sponsored by a group calling themselves the Smoke Free Agents (SFA).

The group said that the government had failed to protect children and teenagers from the dangers of tobacco, considering the high prevalence of juvenile smokers in the country.

'€œWe are asking members of the public to demand that the President adopt the FCTC as soon as possible in order to protect our younger generation,'€ SFA member Muhammad Ricki Cahyana said on Saturday.

He added that it would be ironic if Indonesia failed to ratify the FCTC since it was one of the countries that formulated the framework in 2002-2003. Indonesia remains the only ASEAN country not to have ratified the treaty.

Data from the Health Ministry show there are 60 million smokers in Indonesia, and that more than 3.9 million children aged between 10 and 14 become smokers every year.

There are also more than 40.3 million children aged from 0 to 14 who become passive smokers because of the high prevalence of adult smokers, 2010 data from the Health Ministry show.

By adopting the framework, the government is expected to formulate regulations that would make it difficult for children and teens to access cigarettes and other tobacco products.

The FCTC forbids the sale of cigarettes to anyone under 18 and imposes a total ban on tobacco advertising.

According to a survey from the National Commission on Child Protection, 70 percent of teenagers start smoking after being influenced by cigarette commercials.

The government has issued Regulation (PP) No.109/2012, which stipulates that cigarette packages circulating in the market must bear pictorial warnings. The rule has been in force since June 2014.

The Indonesian Consumer Foundation (YLKI), however, said that the pictorial warnings had failed to produce deterrent effects as there was no significant decrease in the number of smokers in Indonesia.

YLKI therefore has proposed that a higher tobacco tax, up to 57 percent of retail prices compared with the current 30 percent, could be more effective in reducing smoking rates.

Article 6 of the FCTC stipulates as high an increase as possible in tobacco tax.

In 2013, then president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was close to adopting the treaty, but dropped the plan following an objection from the Trade Ministry, the Industry Ministry and the Transmigration Ministry.

The three ministries argued that the treaty would hurt tobacco farmers and reduce the state'€™s income in tobacco excise, which made a large contribution to the state budget.