Jakarta, July 10 -- Population and Family Development Minister/National Population and Family Planning Agency (BKKBN) Head, Wihaji, said 20.9 percent of Indonesian children grow up without an active father figure-termed "fatherless"-which impacts their emotional, social, and cognitive development.

"Children today tend to communicate more with their mothers. As a result, 20.9 percent of children grow up without an actively involved father," he noted in a statement on Thursday.

According to UNICEF data from 2021, the absence of father figures in Indonesia stems from factors such as divorce, death, or occupations that require fathers to live away from their families.

Data from Indonesia's Central Statistics Agency (BPS) in the same year a...