Raya, a little girl from Sukabumi, died from intestinal worms—an entirely preventable disease. 

Her death is more than a personal misfortune. It is an indictment of systemic neglect. It represents the cruel intersection of poverty, malnutrition, lack of access to clean water, and weak public health services. Yet beyond these structural issues, Raya’s story also reveals another dimension too often overlooked: the gendered imbalance in childcare, where mothers are disproportionately burdened, while fathers are insufficiently recognized as co-responsible actors in ensuring child survival.

The global numbers underline the tragedy. According to the United Nation Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (UN IGME) 2023, 4.9 million children under the age of five died in 2022. Most of these deaths were caused not by rare or incurable diseases, but by diarrhea, pneumonia, malnutrition, and intestinal parasites—all preventable with affordable interventions. More than half of these deaths occurred in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, yet Southeast Asia is not immune: over 230.000 under-five deaths were recorded in this region in 2022.

Indonesia has made undeniable progress. The under-five mortality rate fell from 66 deaths per 1.000 live births in 1990 to 23 in 2022, meaning that the country has saved millions of lives over the past three decades. But averages mask inequalities. In absolute terms, around 140.000 Indonesian children still die every year before their fifth birthday, often in rural or marginalized communities. Raya’s village is one such pocket of vulnerability, hidden beneath the national narrative of progress.

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Academic research from other countries deepens our understanding. A seminal study in Bangladesh found that a father’s education plays a critical role in lowering child mortality, especially in families with multiple children. Too often, family planning and maternal health are seen exclusively as women’s responsibilities. Yet the evidence is clear: fathers’ decisions, knowledge, and behaviors directly shape child survival. Where fathers are educated, support family planning, and share parenting responsibilities, child mortality drops significantly.

The case of rural India reinforces this point. Research shows that children from households with uneducated fathers are more likely to die before age five. Access to clean water, safe cooking fuels, sanitation facilities, and village doctors are important, but time and again parental education—of both mothers and fathers—emerges as the strongest determinant. Simulations indicate that if every mother in rural India completed primary school, nearly 28 deaths per 1.000 births could be prevented. If fathers also completed basic education, the effect multiplies. These findings are crucial for Indonesia, where child survival is still narrated almost exclusively through the lens of maternal responsibility.

Raya’s death thus cannot be reduced to maternal neglect or poverty alone. It is the result of overlapping failures: a household constrained by poverty, a mother carrying disproportionate burdens, a father whose role may not have been fully engaged, and a community with inadequate health services. It is also a mirror of patriarchal expectations that see childcare as “women’s work,” thereby ignoring the profound impact of fathers’ education, income, and participation.

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Globally, Indonesia’s mortality rate of 23 per 1.000 is better than the Philippines (27), close to Vietnam (20), but far from Japan (2). The comparison illustrates both progress and the unfinished agenda. If Japan can achieve near-zero child deaths, why should Indonesia accept preventable deaths as inevitable? The barrier is not medical knowledge. It is poverty, inequality, and gender imbalance in parenting.

From Bangladesh we learn that male education and family planning matter. From India we learn that household environments, electricity, sanitation, and doctors in villages matter. And from Indonesia, Raya teaches us that none of these factors can be left to mothers alone. Fathers must step forward—attending health checkups, sharing decisions on nutrition, investing in their children’s education, and ensuring sanitation at home.

Raya’s story should not fade into the news cycle. It should spark a new paradigm: child survival as a collective responsibility. This responsibility rests on mothers and fathers equally, on communities and local governments, and on the state that must ensure universal access to healthcare, clean water, and education. Only then can Indonesia move closer to the Sustainable Development Goal of ending preventable child deaths by 2030. Raya’s short life must not be in vain; she should be remembered as the catalyst for a future in which no child dies of poverty and worms in the twenty-first century.

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Raya’s story should not fade into the news cycle. It should spark a new paradigm: child survival as a collective responsibility. This responsibility rests on mothers and fathers equally, on communities and local governments, and on the state that must ensure universal access to healthcare, clean water, and education. Only then can Indonesia move closer to the Sustainable Development Goal of ending preventable child deaths by 2030. Raya’s short life must not be in vain. She should be remembered as the catalyst for a future in which no child dies of poverty and worms in the twenty-first century.

Her death also resonates directly with the wave of 17+8 demands now circulating on social media. Raya’s case is not an isolated tragedy, but tangible proof of why citizens call for universal healthcare access, gender equality in caregiving, eradication of structural inequalities between urban and rural areas, and stronger state accountability in guaranteeing the right to life. In this sense, Raya’s story embodies the spirit of these demands. A reminder that survival and dignity are not private matters left to mothers or families, but constitutional rights that the state must uphold as part of a democracy that truly serves its people.

References

Klaauw, Bas van der, dan Limin Wang, 2011.  Child Mortality in Rural India. Journal of Population Economics, 24(2), 601-628.

Lucia Hung, dkk. 2024. Levels & Trends in Child Mortality – Report 2023: Estimates Developed by the United Nations Inter-aggency Group for Child Mortality Estimation. (New York: United Nations Children’s Fund).

M. Mizanur Rahman Miah, 1993. Factors Influencing Infant/Child Mortality in Bangladesh: Implication for Family Planning Programs and Policies. International Journal of Sociology of the Family, 23(2), 21-34.