Thousands of children sick from Indonesia’s free meals program

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Indonesia's free meals program has been running for almost a year now - but in recent months a growing scandal has emerged - thousands of children getting sick from food poisoning.  The program is reaching tens of millions of Indonesians, mostly young students.  The nutrition agency, which runs the program has apologised for poisonings, and says it wants to improve as it expands rapidly.

Transcript

00:00We're at a school in South Jakarta, which is one of the recipients of President Prabowo

00:07Subianto's free nutritious school meals program, one of his signature policies. It's been launched

00:12in a bid to address malnutrition and stunting in children. But let's have a look at what's

00:17on the menu today. Some of the kids have already eaten a lot of their free school meals because,

00:23of course, they're saying that it's really tasty today. You can see some ayam, some chicken,

00:28some nazi, some rice, as well as salad and vegetables. There's been a lot of controversy

00:33around this program over the last few months because of the number of children that have

00:37contracted food poisoning after eating these meals. The latest figures from an NGO is that

00:42more than 16,000 children across the country have been made ill, some of them with very,

00:48very serious food poisoning after eating meals.

00:52Having one child that becomes sick because of the program should be considered a disaster.

00:58The President, as a leader, needs to say that. He really does not understand the human rights

01:03perspective.

01:04It's prompted a major response from the President directing the nutrition agency to tighten up

01:09food safety standards.

01:11One case is too many for us, but this is a challenge of growth, not a challenge of neglect.

01:20This is a living system we learn every day. We don't see this as a failure, but this is

01:26a teacher for us to strengthen our system.

01:30So ultimately the question is, can they make sure that they maintain safety standards as the

01:35program expands so rapidly and avoid further children from being made sick?

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