Reform? Who is it for?<\/p>\n
To the political elite in this country, the lot of millions of
\nIndonesian children is obviously not as important as the
\npolitical fate of President Abdurrahman Wahid, the deteriorating
\nrelations between Indonesia and the United States or the question
\nof whether or not Hutomo Mandala Putra, the youngest son of
\nformer president Soeharto, should go to jail.<\/p>\n
The media (including yours truly) gave scant or no coverage to
\na national conference on children which was held in Jakarta last
\nweek. Most newspapers regarded the event as not newsy enough to
\nmerit even a small mention in their pages, let alone front-page
\ntreatment. Thanks to such indifference, few people can recall
\nthat there was such a conference. It is even harder to find
\nsomeone who can recite the content of the discussions.<\/p>\n
University of Indonesia psychology professor Yaumil Agoes
\nAchir, in a front-page interview with this newspaper on Tuesday,
\nhowever, gave some shocking news about the condition of millions
\nof children which should bring shame to society (and the media)
\nfor neglecting the issue entirely.<\/p>\n
The figures, revealed during the conference in an attempt to
\ndraw public attention, are too mind-numbing to be believable: 6.8
\nmillion children between the ages of 7 and 15 are out of school;
\n20 million are malnourished; the infant mortality rate is 100 for
\nevery 1,000 live births; there are 3.6 million child workers for
\n12 million children who are on the street or are neglected; up to
\nfour million children have physical or mental disabilities, and
\nalmost all have no access to proper care; and hundreds of
\nthousands each year are subjected to sexual abuse and forced
\nprostitution, with little hope of legal protection. Yaumil said
\nmost of these figures virtually doubled from what they were
\nbefore the economic crisis struck Indonesia in 1998.<\/p>\n
What is even more mind-boggling than these numbers is
\nsociety's virtual indifference, particularly the media and
\npoliticians, the very people who should have raised the alarm
\nabout these problems. For the past year, the nation's elite seem
\nto have been more preoccupied with the struggle for political
\npower. Economic problems have been relegated from the national
\nagenda, while social problems, including the children's lot, have
\nbeen removed completely from the agenda.<\/p>\n
The children's fate, along with many other major social
\nissues, were actually given some prominence when the economic
\ncrisis began to affect the lives of many people in this country
\nin 1998. We recall the massive social safety net programs
\nlaunched by the government, with the help of the billions of
\ndollars of World Bank loans, to cushion the poorest of the poor
\nin Indonesia from the worst impact of the crisis. We also recall
\nthe spontaneous massive public fund-raising campaigns in response
\nto reports of children dropping out of school, of increasing
\nprevalence of undernourishment among children and of increasing
\nimpoverishment among people as a result of the economic crisis.<\/p>\n
The public campaign to help the poor somehow lost its momentum
\nin the middle of 1999 when the nation became so consumed with a
\nseries of elections, first the general election in June and later
\nthe presidential election in October. After Abdurrahman Wahid
\nbecame Indonesia's first democratically elected President, the
\ncountry should have turned its attention back to resolving the
\noutstanding social and economic problems.<\/p>\n
Alas, that has not happened at all. Since the October
\npresidential election to this day, the nation's political elite
\nhave been caught in an endless struggle for political power.
\nThese are the same people who came to power by riding on the back
\nof the reform movement which toppled the authoritarian regime of
\npresident Soeharto in 1998 in the hope of bringing meaningful
\nimprovement to people's lives. They are the ones who have the
\nmandate from the people to make those changes.<\/p>\n
Now, more than one year after the election of the first
\n\"reform\" administration, life has hardly changed for most people,
\nincluding, as we can see from the statistics above, millions of
\nchildren. For many, things have even gotten worse.<\/p>\n
As repressive and corrupt as the regime of Soeharto was, it at
\nleast tried to take care of children's needs, from their
\neducation to their general welfare. The regime did not
\nnecessarily do a good job but it had the political will. The same
\ncannot be said about the current administration. Which raises the
\nquestion: for whom was the reform movement intended? Certainly
\nnot for the millions of children who dropped out of school, the
\nmillions of children who have become undernourished or the
\nthousands of infants who died within weeks or months after their
\nbirth.<\/p>",
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