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If newspapers had audio-video capability — and from what I hear, one day they will — you would see and hear me giving the government a standing ovation for its announcement last week that it planned to offer free birth care for all Indonesian women.

Finally we have some common sense coming from a member of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s cabinet.

And not only that, but Health Minister Endang Rahayu Sedyaningsih showed initiative and proved that she’s actually in touch with the plight of the country’s poor masses.

If only other cabinet misters had a clue, the current administration would have more success stories these days.

The initiative for the state to pay for deliveries stems from recent cases of poor women being forced to sell their newborns to pay their hospital bills, or hospitals holding newborns as collateral until payment is made.

Such stories are sad and embarrassing, and it says something that the Ministry of Health acknowledges a problem and is seeking solutions.

The initiative hopefully also will reduce the country’s shockingly high maternal and infant mortality rates.

Alas, if all our government officials would act this way, Indonesia would be a better place.

But self-interest, or the fear of losing face, or a refusal to accept responsibility or plain old incompetence tend to get in the way of sound policies.

This happens on a regular basis.

Consider the decision last January by the Jakarta city administration and city police to round up thousands of street children and compel them to submit to rectal examinations in an effort to identify victims of sexual abuse.

Ah yes, let’s find out if street children have been sexually violated by in turn violating them via a rectal exam.

Is this sound government policy?

No, it was an ill-conceived strategy by Jakarta administration and police officials to assure the public they weren’t neglecting the city’s street children after alleged serial killer Bayquni, aka Babe, confessed to having raped and killed 14 young boys.

More recently, of course, we have the laughable policy by Information Minister Tifatul Sembiring to block pornographic Web sites in Indonesia.

His reasoning? To “protect our youth,” as if the Internet is the cause of increased sexual behavior among the nation’s teenagers.

There’s just one problem: The minister failed to provide any reliable data to show that the Internet is causing increased sexual behavior among teenagers.

That’s not to say that teenagers here aren’t negatively affected by the Internet. It’s just that Tifatul initiated a highly controversial policy to block Web sites without any evidence that it would do any good.

Sound familiar? (I won’t even mention the minister’s claim that 90 percent of pornographic Web sites have now been blocked; a cursory search on Google shows that surfers still have access to thousands of hard-core sites with a single click.)

If Sembiring really wants to protect Indonesian youth from harmful content, he should have gone after television.

According to the Boston-based Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, more than half of American teenagers reported getting some or most of their information about sex from television.

On average, the group says, music videos contain 93 sexual situations per hour, including 11 “hard-core” scenes depicting behaviors such as intercourse and oral sex.

While television programming in the United States is not the same as in Indonesia, American TV shows and video channels are available here.

There have also been Indonesian studies on television content that have raised concerns, so the Information Ministry would at least have a shot at helping teenagers through a realistic government regulation.

Talk about government regulations and new laws is increasingly important, given that the House of Representatives seems poised to ram through a number of bills in the coming weeks to try and meet a minimum quota for its first year.

Of course, the problem with such deadline bills is that they’re often so horribly written and contradictory that they do more harm than good, do no good at all or are quashed by the Constitutional Court.

Lawmakers who want to make a difference have several options.

For starters, amend the 2008 law known as MP3 regarding the People’s Consultative Assembly, House of Representatives, Regional Representative Council and provincial legislatures.

This law makes it illegal for anyone to lie to lawmakers when testifying before them, but oddly enough, there’s no sanction for anyone found guilty of perjury.

If the law is amended to mandate a 10-year prison sentence, it might stop National Police officials from fabricating evidence and trying to frame officials from the Corruption Eradication Commission.

Second, make it explicitly illegal for senior officials from the National Police to directly own or run private businesses while serving in the force.

That might help reduce the number of million-dollar bank accounts linked to senior officers, and eliminate the alibi that their stashes are from business profits rather than corruption.

Speaking of which, why isn’t anyone sharpening their pitchforks over claims that it’s OK for National Police officials to run private businesses while they’re supposed to be serving the public?

And finally, pass a law banning hospitals from refusing to release newborns to their parents until they pay their medical bill. The law would also ban staff members from taking custody of newborns in exchange for paying the bills.

Pardon me if this sounds naive, but where I come from, such acts are referred to as hostage-taking and child trafficking. We even have laws saying so.


Joe Cochrane is a Jakarta Globe contributing editor.