Charity box children wait for end of detention

JAKARTA (JP): Seven teenage girls, aged between 15 and 19, who have been in custody at the city's Bangun Daya 02 temporary detention house in Kedoya, West Jakarta, for about six weeks, are waiting impatiently for the end of their detention.

Interviewed by The Jakarta Post on Thursday, the girls -- from Solo and Purwokerto in Central Java -- said they were nabbed by City Public Order Agency personnel when collecting donations from bus passengers and pedestrians for the construction of a mosque and an Islamic boarding school.

The city personnel, they said, accused the charity box girls of defrauding money from people by saying that the funds would be used for a religious mission.

Sitting together on the floor of a small trapezoid cell which had nothing but five token mattresses, and no pillows, the girls said they were no longer able to wait for their release.

"I have been here for 45 days," said Dariati, who looked younger than the 16 years she claimed to be.

"But I still don't know when will they let me go," she said sadly.

The girls are powerless to do anything and must simply await their fate. No one, including people assigned to collect the money they raised or lawyers, has so far appeared to free them from their minuscule cell, which is often used to detain prostitutes, beggars and the homeless who have been charged with violating city regulations.

The head of the house, Nandi Tjaspandi, said he personally had no authority to release the teenagers and that the decision lay in the hands of the City Social Agency, which runs the house.

His office, he said, was still waiting for further instructions from the agency.

"I heard that the agency will return the girls to their homes in their respective villages, but I don't know when," Nandi said.

He did not explain why the house had kept the girls under detention for one and a half months in the absence of a legal process. He also failed to mention why there had been no contact with relatives of the girls in order to inform them about their detention.

The Kedoya house is one several similar run by the City Social Agency and used as a temporary place before inmates are either later released or sent to rehabilitation centers.

Suryanti, 16, who claimed to have been collecting money for the Al-Madinah Assalafiah boarding school in Pamanukan, West Java, along with the other four girls in the cell, said she was paid Rp 5,000 per day to raise funds on buses.

In one day, she recalled, she could collect between Rp 10,000 and Rp 15,000, which she and the other fund raisers handed over to an older friend, who then gave the money to someone they called "the coordinator".

None of the girls have met their "coordinators".

"I needed money to eat," Suryanti recalled.

Some of the girls doubted the real purpose of the coordinator, whom they did not know and had never met.

They admitted that their main reason for taking part in the seemingly religious mission was money.

"I had doubts, but you know I couldn't go to check whether the boarding school existed or not. I couldn't afford it," Nawati, another girl, said.

She asked a member of staff at the house to directly check whether or not the boarding school existed.

"And if it does, please release us," Nawati said.

The girls said they were given meals three times a day, consisting of rice, vegetables, usually boiled spinach, and oncom (fermented tempe).

"Fish? Never," Nawati said.

According to Nandi, the center received modest funding from the City Social Agency.

"It allocates only Rp 5,000 per inmate per day," Nandi said.

Last year, a total of 279 fund raisers were detained, who claimed to have been assigned to collect funds for Islamic institutions.

When contacted by phone, a man who said he was the head of the Al-Madinah Assalafiah boarding school, Sofwan Suri, admitted that his school was employing people to raise funds for, among other things, a boys dormitory.

But he insisted that he had no idea about the girls detained in Kedoya.

"I haven't heard about that, but I will contact the fund raising coordinator to check on the matter," Sofwan said from Pamanukan.

He claimed that there were only two coordinators for his project in Jakarta: Jafar who lived in Kreo, Ciledug in South Jakarta and Agus who coordinated the collecting at Kampung Rambutan terminal, in East Jakarta.

It is common in many big cities across the country to see hundreds, or perhaps thousands of people, on city buses and at housing complexes, asking for money for various religious missions, such as the development of boarding schools and mosques.

They usually carry lists and the proposals of the projects to be constructed or renovated, along with charity boxes or envelopes.

While awaiting their day of freedom, the seven girls at the Kedoya house have nothing to do besides sitting in their cell.

A torn book titled Managing Social Organizations, which they borrowed from the house, is their only "companion".

The girls said they wished for something more suitable to read.

"That would be good," Siti Markamah, a girl who had been sitting quietly said suddenly. (08)