Indonesia’s Health Ministry is trying to push the country into ratifying the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC).
Health Minister Nafsiah Mboi recently told reporters that her ministry had asked the president for permission to ratify the treaty.
Nafsiah said that while Indonesia was one of the 192 countries that had formulated the FCTC, it had not yet ratified it.
Indonesia was the only Asian country and, along with Somalia, one of only two Muslim countries that had not ratified the treaty, she added.
Nafsiah said that the ministry would face opposition from the tobacco industry, but, she said, the government meant no harm to the industry or tobacco farmers.
“Within the FCTC, basically there are no regulation[s] to ban tobacco production,” Nafsiah said. “The treaty aims to protect the public by controlling tobacco advertising, to prohibit the youth from smoking and regulate the harm to passive smokers.”
The minister said the government would need to work hard to get approval from the House of Representatives, which had long been reluctant to support tobacco control.