Image by Getty Images via @daylifeA two year old Indonesian boy has become addicted to cigarettes after his father gave him his first when he was just eighteen months old.
Ardi Rizal, who lives in the fishing village of Busi Banyuasin, in Indonesia's South Sumatra, is part of what has been described as a disturbing trend. Data from the Central Statistics Agency showed that 25% of children aged from 3 to 15 years have tried cigarettes, with 3.2% of those active smokers.
The percentage of five to nine year olds lighting up had increased from 0.4% in 2001 to 2.8% in 2004. In a country with a population exceeding 400 million people this represents a huge number of young children smoking.
The boy's father, Mohammad Rizal reportedly said,"I'm not worried about his health. He looks healthy. He cries and throws tantrums when we won't let him smoke. He's addicted." Really? .
Seba Mulyadi, chairman of Indonesia's child protection commissiom, blames the increase on aggressive advertising and parents who smoke. Don't blame advertising in this instance - it is not the young children who buy the cigarettes, it is their parents or other adults.
Mr Mulyadi claims there should be laws enacted to protect children and passive smokers. While there are already laws passed in 2009 recognising that smoking is addictive, and an anti-smoking coalition is pushing for even tougher measures to be taken against smoking in public places, advertising bans and larger health warnings on cigarette packets, what is needed is for parents to accept their responsibility as adults and protect their children against smoking. Whatever happened to the word no? It is the parents who should be prosecuted for allowing their children to smoke. In many countries the children would be removed from such irresponsible parents.
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3 comments:
Hi Pete,
It was a very sad news. Teenagers i.e. 12years and above can be understandable is they want to know about the taste of cigarettes.
But under 5 years old? Something wrong with the parents.
Something terribly wrong! A two year old, and the father said he looked well?
peter
Forget allowing their children to smoke, at 18 months old they are his pushers. There is not an 18 month old in the world who comes upon smoking by his or herself. It is disgusting. What did they do sit down at lunch and give him mashed bananas, yogurt and a butt? Let me guess, he gets whiskey in his sippy cup too right?
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