A global citizenship for children?<\/p>\n
Santi W.E. Soekanto, Contributor, Jakarta<\/p>\n
There should really be global citizenship for children -- one
\nthat ensures that they get the first call for the resources of
\nthe world, regardless of their location and background.<\/p>\n
A special United Nations of Children to fight for their
\ninterests would also be helpful, even without Nobel Prize
\nlaureates at the helm.<\/p>\n
A utopia it may be, but why should 12-year-old Sri
\nWahyuningsih have to drop out of elementary school in order to
\nscavenge for her family, rooting around in garbage in Depok, West
\nJava, while 13-year-old Ulrika Almquist in Stockholm has access
\nto thousands of good library books, good schooling and good food?<\/p>\n
Why should 2-year-old Iji of Aceh now have to stay in an
\norphanage in East Jakarta pining for his parents who
\n"disappeared" and are presumed dead in the conflict zone, while
\nMax in Bristol, UK, gets both of his parents to take him to the
\nwell-equipped playground at Brandon Hill?<\/p>\n
Why should 3-year-old Dewi in a refugee camp in Poso, Central
\nSulawesi, who is so undernourished that she looks like a shrunken
\nold woman, be unable to even go to the hospital because of the
\nongoing armed clashes around her, while Takuya in Tokyo lives in
\na fortified environment where every child is guaranteed the best
\nhospital care?<\/p>\n
A 15-year-old Indonesian maid in Singapore attempting to
\nescape an abusive employer was raped twice -- and may even have
\ncontracted syphilis -- by a cab driver that had promised to help
\nher seek shelter. (This took place in 1998 and the driver has
\nsince been sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment and 24 strokes
\nof the cane.) If she could, the girl would have preferred to have
\nspent her time the way her counterparts did in the Western world
\n-- working part-time for pocket money and vacationing on the
\nbeach.<\/p>\n
If possible, thousands of young girls in Indonesian
\ncommunities would not want to be perceived as marketable assets
\nfor families with limited resources. Countless publications have
\nreported how in these cases, parents are paid for the bonded
\nservices of their child whether for domestic work, work in the
\ncommercial sex industry, or other hazardous work.<\/p>\n
Why should the children in Maluku, Papua, Aceh, Central
\nSulawesi and other places in the 22 Indonesian provinces where
\nthe 1.3 million internally displaced people are scattered, have
\nto languish in makeshift tents in refugee camps, when in
\nJakarta's urban centers children throw away good money at video
\ngame arcades?<\/p>\n
For that matter, why should children in Afghanistan and
\nPalestine and other part of the world be the first to suffer
\nbecause of violence they did not start?<\/p>\n
Only those at the lower end of the scale feel the gaps of the
\nworld.<\/p>\n
Such is the case even in Indonesia where some 120 million
\npeople are living in or near poverty, as the World Bank recently
\nrevealed. Approximately 30 million children under the age of 17
\nhere, in fact, are facing what UNICEF Executive Director Carol
\nBellamy has described as a "long-term emergency".<\/p>\n
In August 1998, she stated in Jakarta that the fate of
\nmillions of Indonesian women and children was at stake. Then,
\n"Some four million Indonesian children below the age of two are
\nalready severely malnourished and more than 30 percent of the
\ncountry's children are at risk of failing to complete primary
\nschool."<\/p>\n
The various loan packages offered by the World Bank, the
\nInternational Monetary Fund and other lending agencies may not be
\nenough to turn things around. "It will take years for Indonesia
\nto recover," she stated, "and sustained international aid is
\ncritically important to saving the lives of children.<\/p>\n
The world community must do what is necessary to rescue the
\npotential of Indonesian children through good nutrition and
\nschooling that will enable them to participate in the competitive
\nworld of the 21st century."<\/p>\n
How fortunate for the world population that those children are
\noften the most resilient beings. Life knocks them about and
\nthrows one abuse after another at them, yet they grow up into
\nstrong adults. The child victims of numerous natural or man-made
\ndisasters in the past have grown up to become community leaders
\n-- one does not have to look far to find such people.<\/p>\n
One such person that comes to mind is Nani Nurahman Sutoyo,
\nwho witnessed the assassination of her general father in the 1965
\ncoup attempt blamed on the now-banned communist party.<\/p>\n
She suffered the trauma for decades and yet she grew up
\nstrong. She became a psychologist and recently led a movement to
\n"forgive but not forget" the atrocity.<\/p>\n
It would be inappropriate, however, to ever take this
\nresilience for granted because, with the progress of time,
\nchildren are facing even more complicated challenges. According
\nto USAID, there is an increasing worldwide demand for girls in
\nthe lucrative industries of sex tourism, commercial sex, cheap
\nsweatshop labor, and cheap and compliant domestic workers.<\/p>\n
In Indonesia, there is demand nationwide and in well-known
\ntourist and entertainment areas (i.e., Bali and the Riau Islands)
\nfor young girls and women for the commercial sex industry. The
\ndemand is also increasing for the cheap labor of Indonesian women
\nand girls in the Middle East.<\/p>\n
There is also an increased demand for ever-younger (and thus
\ndisease-free) Indonesian sex and entertainment workers in nearby
\nSingapore and Malaysia, Taiwan, Japan and Korea. Currently, it
\nappears that organized trafficking networks of Indonesian and
\nChinese-Indonesians is a large and very lucrative business
\nventure involving low risks. Koalisi Perempuan, a woman's group,
\nestimates that as many as 150,000 Indonesian women and children
\nare trafficked internationally per year.<\/p>\n
In many cases, the girls' youth and virginity are sold at a
\nprice cheaper than the price of a goat.<\/p>\n
It is a good thing that Indonesian lawmakers are now working
\non the child protection bill that would detail the obligations of
\nparents, families, community and the government toward children.
\nThe suffering of countless children both here and elsewhere,
\nhowever, tells us that the responsibility rests with every one of
\nus across states and borders.<\/p>",
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