The Indonesian government has released guidelines and regulations for public spaces which should remain smoke free, these have manifested in the placement of ‘no smoking’ signs in areas such as schools, healthcare facilities and places of worship. These regulations are a response to the quite startling statistics surrounding tobacco consumption in Indonesia. In 2008 WHO inquiry into the tobacco issue ranked Indonesia the 3rd highest smoker per capita in the world. A spokesperson from the KPAI (an Indonesian government initiative to protect children’s rights), Chairman Hadi Supeno, stated that “24 percent of male and 2 percent of female children aged between 12 and 15 started to smoke. The number of children exposing to the danger of smoking was even greater as 70 percent of men in the families were active smokers.”(People’s daily online, 2010).
Although the government has created policies of smoke free environments the reality is far from the legislation, “Even though schools are supposed to be smoke free areas, the informants often see their male teachers smoking in their offices, in the schoolyard and in classes.” (Nawi et al. 2007). The students at the schools watch the behaviour of the teachers and over time a model for behaviour is formed, being taught that you shouldn’t smoke will continue to be unsuccessful in these environments if the students are expected to watch their teachers and peers engage in smoking behaviour. Other individuals interviewed stated that they “smoked together with their friends on their way to and from school, at the bus/train station, at amusement centres when they socialize and even in the mosque.” the behaviour is ubiquitous with sociality and as a result even places of worship are not maintained as smoke free.
My map of the Arab district was an attempt to show the places that young people go to when they are learning about their world, society and how to be good citizens of their city. These places such as the schools and mosques should have non-smoking signage and dedicated smoke free zones have been plotted onto the Arab Quarter to show locations that ideally should be safe places and smoke free for the young people of the area. Whether this is currently a reality is hard to prove but with more government support and growing awareness these areas could become centres for a new generation of smoke free Indonesians.
References:
Nawi Ng, Weinehall, L. and Öhman, A. 2007, ‘If I don’t smoke, I’m not a real man’—Indonesian teenage boys’ views about smoking’, Health Education Research Volume 22, Issue 6, pp. 794‐804, http://her.oxfordjournals.org/content/22/6/794.short
People’s Daily Online. Indonesia struggling to deter children from smoking. Written 8th Feb 2010, http://en.people.cn/90001/90782/90880/7122690.html, Accessed 6th Dec 2018.
Indonesia Global Design Studio 