IDEAS Research Institute: Children Become The Target Market For The Cigarette Industry

Photo by Ben Wicks on Unsplash

JAKARTA - The cigarette industry in Indonesia is targeting children as its marketing target. Even children after elementary school.

"The cigarette industry is even deliberately targeting children as their target market. Elementary school age children have been targeted to become smokers," said Director of the Institute for Demographic and Poverty Studies (IDEAS) Research Institute Yusuf Wibisono, Tuesday, June 21, as quoted by Antara. .

It says the younger a person starts smoking, the greater the chance that person will become a smoker in the future.

Yusuf said that the health threat for Indonesian children is child smokers and children who live in homes with smoking fathers.

Not only targeting children, the cigarette industry also targets women as consumers.

However, the prevalence of smoking among women in Indonesia is low. The cause is cultural factors and social sanctions.

However, with the weakening of social stigma and foreign cultural influences, including cigarette advertising and promotion, the prevalence of smoking among women is increasing.

"Although still low, this trend marks the transformation of women from passive smokers to active smokers. Besides endangering themselves, female smokers will also harm the fetus and baby," he said.

He added that during the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of smokers actually increased.

"The prevalence of smoking has actually increased during the pandemic, even among the poor," said Yusuf.

Based on data from the National Socio-Economic Survey (Susenas), the number of smokers in 2019 was 57.2 million people. In 2021, there will be an increase of 2.1 million people to 59.3 million smokers and public spending on cigarettes will increase from IDR 344.4 trillion to IDR 365.7 trillion.

"Every year people spend trillions to buy cigarettes," he said.