The effects of Indonesia’s deadly relationship with smoking has been well documented, with around 67.4 percent of all men over 15 in Indonesia being tobacco users (the highest rate in the world) and tobacco-related diseases killing at least 200,000 Indonesians per year. The government has shown little willingness to combat the country’s smoking epidemic, failing to pass national laws banning tobacco advertising and refusing to ratify the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.
This lack of protection has led the international tobacco industry to target Indonesia’s children to get a new generation of smokers addicted. And they’ve been massively successful, with around 30% of all Indonesian children smoking a cigarette before the age of 10 (one of those, of course, being Indonesia’s infamous smoking baby).
The above statistic comes from child advocacy NGO Lentera Anak. According to Lentera, the way that cigarette manufacturers are marketing to children is by specifically buying advertising around schools. They recently did a study of 90 schools around Indonesia and found that cigarette ads could be seen nearby the entrances to almost all of them. Often these advertisements take the form of banners on warung stalls and kiosks that tobacco companies pay the owners to place.
With the government shamefully refusing to take the actions necessary to protect our children from cigarettes, Lentera decided to brief the students at those schools about how they were being targeted by the tobacco industry.
After hearing about that, it was the students who decided that they weren’t going to take it anymore. They came up with the idea for a campaign, #TolakJadiTarget (Reject Being a Target) which involves rallying their classmates to help remove tobacco advertising around their schools.
Dukung #TolakJadiTarget agar Industri Rokok tidak beriklan di sekitar sekolah! Klik "Dukung" pada link ini: https://t.co/gx0jFd2PZX pic.twitter.com/QFvkXm37fm
— Komnas Pengendalian Tembakau (@KomnasPT) February 24, 2017
In many cases, this involved the students taking down cigarette brand banners around their schools and replacing them with signs from the #TolakJadiTarget campaign.
Dengan anak-anak yang peduli ini, gue jadi yakin kita masih punya harapan di depan. #TolakJadiTarget pic.twitter.com/Mdz5DXhxYb
— Juki (@JukiHoki) February 23, 2017
But what about the money that the warung owners were getting paid by the tobacco companies to keep the banners up? Well, the kids thought of that too, with many students raising money to pay the owners to put up their #TolakJadiTarget banners instead (along with a promise that they won’t sell cigarettes to children.
https://www.facebook.com/lenteraanak/posts/1603741199643766
It’s inspiring to see Indonesian students rise up against the industry that is trying to exploit them so mercilessly, but incredibly sad that the responsibility should have to fall on them.
https://www.facebook.com/lenteraanak/posts/1601822383168981
Hopefully the government will be shamed by their example and finally do what is necessary to protect our kids from tobacco.
https://www.facebook.com/lenteraanak/posts/1588196257864927
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