Poor children need helping hand<\/p>\n
Finding a real solution for children in the sex industry or
\nliving on the streets is no small undertaking. Those of us
\nworking on their behalf must strive to gain a real understanding
\nof their struggle and of their communities.<\/p>\n
For several months I shared a small room in an area of East
\nJakarta with five child prostitutes from West Java. Our room
\nresembled a cave, with a cement floor and rock walls crawling
\nwith insects.<\/p>\n
There was no furniture except for the bare floor, which was
\nused for everything from eating meals to servicing customers. The
\nentire community shared one source of water, which was used for
\neverything from bathing, washing clothes and dishes, to carrying
\naway human waste. All the water ran untreated into a stream that
\nwound its way through the entire slum area. But only newcomers
\nseemed bothered by the smell.<\/p>\n
The girls' days were filled with chaos. They worked from dusk
\nuntil dawn, coming back to the room at 6 a.m. exhausted. They
\nwould immediately fall asleep on the floor without changing or
\ntaking off their makeup.<\/p>\n
Sometimes on the weekends army members would show up at 7
\na.m., wanting to get drunk with the children. No matter how tired
\nthey were, the girls would get up again and continue to work.<\/p>\n
In this area of East Jakarta, incidents of rape, teenage
\npregnancies, STDs, abortions, police raids and self-mutilation
\ncome with the territory. Nobody really reacts to them anymore.
\nSometimes one of the girls would come home early in the morning,
\nscreaming about wanting to commit suicide after a bad night with
\na customer. These incidents were somehow dealt with as they
\narose, but it took a lot of effort not to get swept away in the
\nmadness of it all.<\/p>\n
Before living on a daily basis with this community, I had many
\nmisconceptions about their industry. The biggest one I had was
\nthat all the adults involved were pure evil.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, it's not that simple. Living in this area has
\nforced me to reevaluate my idea of what it means to be an adult
\nand what it means to be a child. In terms of maturity, education
\nor level of consciousness, there is very little difference
\nbetween children and adults here.<\/p>\n
Everybody depends on the sex trade for their daily survival,
\nand age only determines one's place in the system. The pimps are
\nformer sex workers, and many child sex workers go on to become
\npimps.<\/p>\n
The people here almost never venture outside this kampong, so
\ntheir view of the world is shaped almost exclusively by their
\nexperiences with each other within this two-mile radius.<\/p>\n
Simply growing older in a place like this does not magically
\nproduce the responsible, enlightened beings we like to refer to
\nas "adults". And it's unrealistic to expect them to measure up to
\na standard of behavior or a system of values that they have never
\neven encountered.<\/p>\n
The girls here have good relationships with their pimps, most
\nof whom are women. They don't hate them or view them as
\nexploiters.<\/p>\n
They are all struggling together to make a living, and
\neveryone understands that the others are just doing what they can
\nto get by.<\/p>\n
The girls, their pimps and the criminals in the park form a
\nunited front against the police and the military. The lines are
\ndrawn based on what you do for a living, and not on things like
\nage or the law.<\/p>\n
I moved out eventually to help my friends who had just opened
\na new transit house for street kids. Three of my former roommates
\nfrom East Jakarta actually left their jobs and pimp to stay with
\nus in the transit house.<\/p>\n
We found sponsors to replace their lost income, and things
\nwere OK for awhile. But the girls were never really comfortable
\nin their new environment.<\/p>\n
The neighbors complained about the way they dressed and their
\novertly sexual behavior toward all the men in the community.
\nThey didn't mean to do it, but after years of that lifestyle they
\njust didn't know how to interact with men in any other way. They
\nmissed their old community, where they were accepted
\nunconditionally and didn't have to be ashamed of their past.
\nEventually, they all went back.<\/p>\n
After the girls left, the transit house filled up quickly with
\nstreet children. The children in our transit house are referred
\nto as hard-core street children.<\/p>\n
They were totally separated from their families and living
\nalone in Jakarta. None of them were in school, all of them
\nsmoked, and most of them were addicted to sniffing glue. They
\nwere all between the ages of 10 to 13. Most of the time, the
\nhouse was in total chaos.<\/p>\n
They would come home at all hours of the night, yelling
\noutside the door and waking up the neighbors. We had a lot of
\nrules in the house, but it was hard to discipline 15 youths who
\nwere used to sleeping on the side of the road and not having to
\nanswer to anyone.<\/p>\n
As the months went by, however, there was some improvement in
\ntheir behavior. They learned to respect the rules of the house
\nand to share simple chores. The truth is that most of them were
\nreally good children. They deeply appreciated what we were trying
\nto do for them, and they considered the transit house their real
\nhome.<\/p>\n
Many of them were from far-off places like Medan and Ambon,
\nand they loved to tell stories in the middle of the night about
\ntheir dreams, former life at home and their journey to Jakarta.
\nWe were like a family, and that's the first step to really being
\nable to reach a street kid.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, last month after a particularly unruly evening,
\nthe neighbors had had enough. They enlisted the help of our
\nlandlord, and the kids were evicted from the transit house.<\/p>\n
Although we reassured them that we would find another house as
\nquickly as possible, it was very traumatizing for them to lose
\ntheir home and be separated from the few adults who actually
\ncared about them, and even loved them. Our dilapidated little
\ntransit house had meant much more than we had first thought, and
\nwe all cried for a week.<\/p>\n
I don't know what is in store for them, or if we can really
\nmake up for everything that they have been through. But I do know
\nthat even after the years of hardship, they will still be full of
\nhope and courage.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/poor-children-need-helping-hand-1447893297",
"image": ""
},
"sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
"sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com"
}