Arrested boys, girls jailed in filthy 'rehabilitation center'

Rendi A. Witular, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

On that morning, as was her custom, Ella walked toward the Teluk Gong traditional market in North Jakarta, she never reached her destination after several public order officers stopped her to check her ID card.

Ella told them that she was only 16 - which means that she would have to wait for another year to be eligible for an ID card. Yet, they arrested the girl, who was working as a housemaid for a family in nearby Muara Kapuk area.

The controversial ID card raids commenced on Jan. 22 to discourage unskilled outsiders from inundating Jakarta.

Ella is now at the Kedoya rehabilitation center, in West Jakarta, locked up in a six by three meter "cell" which she shares with three other housemaids.

As of Friday, the center had 118 inhabitants labeled by the government as, "people with community and social problems".

While Ella and several others were detained because they did not have Jakarta ID cards, the rest, including beggars and sex workers, were arrested in operations against public order.

The center comprises five blocks, one each for men, women, children, psychotics and beggars/homeless people.

Each block has three cells, with a maximum capacity of 15 people. Each cell is equipped with a toilet but lacks a proper bed. On part of the floor, a 15-cm high wooden "mattress" was erected, and covered with a plastic sheet, on which the "detainees" sleep.

Syafrizal, a former inhabitant of the center, said it was more like jail.

"I had to spend my days and nights in the cell. I ate there, urinated there and bathed there. They just let me out once in a while when they had briefings with us," he said.

Syafrizal, a street singer from Pekalongan, Central Java, had been in the center for almost one month before he, along with 50 other people, were sent home last week.

The rehabilitation center was built in 1983 by the city administration but from 1984 to 1994 it was used as a penitentiary for women. In 1994, it regained its function as a rehabilitation center.

It is managed by the city social agency with a monthly operational budget of Rp 70 million. The center can accommodate up to 300 people.

According to the warden of the facility, Untung Surardjo, it functioned only as a transit place before the people were sent to another specific rehab center. The "illegal migrants" - those who are not Jakarta residents - would be sent to their home villages.

Sex workers are sent to the women's rehab center in Pasar Rebo, East Jakarta.

Transvestites are transferred to the rehab center for mentally disabled people in Pondok Bambu, East Jakarta.

"They are classified (in Indonesia) as mentally disabled," Untung said.

He said that the people were housed at the center for at least 15 days and as long as one month.

Theoretically, the center should provide special vocational training for people. But it is only given occasionally, due to the lack of skilled trainers.

Untung complained that the city manpower agency and the education agency that were also supposed to handle the people had shucked their responsibility. "We can not afford to put children in school or to find appropriate jobs for beggars and street singers."

Despite all of its weaknesses, the center does manage to provide nutritious meals.

Last Friday, for example, lunch consisted of rice, chicken, vegetables and tofu. There was even watermelon for dessert.

"Despite the (unpleasant) environment, the rehab guards were fairly kind, but there are several public order officers who come here to beat the boys and grope me," said Dewi, a sex worker.