Child abuse widespread in 2001, commission reports

Fitri Wulandari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The number of child abuse cases rose this year but the state has no adequate legislation to cope with the problem, the National Commission for Child Protection (KPA) has reported.

The most common forms of abuse were rape, prostitution and forced labor. School dropouts were also a serious problem, the commission said in its year-end report.

The commission criticized the government and the House of Representatives for lacking the initiative to formulate legislation aimed at preventing child abuse.

It recorded 381 cases of violence against children in Jakarta alone in 2001, an increase from 261 last year. Sixty percent, or 228, of the total were sexual abuse cases involving the victim's own relatives.

Around 20 percent, or 107 of the cases, involved child street singers and beggars, while 12 percent, or 46 of the cases, involved physical harassment ranging from pinching to beating and kicking.

The commission reported that the coming year looked bleak for the nation's children as the economic crisis forced more and more of them to earn a living.

It revealed that children made up at least 30 percent, or 390,000, of the 1.3 million commercial sex workers officially registered across the country. They are often unable to avoid violence, unwanted pregnancies and deadly sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS.

Seto Mulyadi, chairman of the commission, said on Wednesday that if the terrible situation were not immediately addressed, Indonesia risked losing at least one generation to poverty, malnutrition, poor education and a lack of nourishment and care.

"We urge the government to give more attention to this issue. All forms of exploitation, discrimination, negligence of children's rights and other violence against them are crimes against humanity," he said.

Seto said abuses of children's basic rights would create an "aggressive and anarchic" generation.

Arist Merdeka Sirait, the commission's secretary, criticized the government and the House of Representatives for lacking the political will to protect children.

The commission, along with other relevant non-governmental groups, submitted a bill on children's protection to the House several months ago but it has not yet been debated, for reasons that are unclear.

Children's access to education remains limited. The report said around 12.5 million children dropped out of school this year, an increase from 11 million in 2000.

Some 6.5 million children had to work to survive this year, a more than 100 percent increase on the 2.7 million recorded in 2000.

Many of them work in dangerous places, such as plantations, farms, the streets and brothels.

Communal conflicts, which have plagued several regions across the country for the last three years, have worsened the situation. Thousands of children and their families were forced to live in refugee camps.

A report from the Ministry of Social Affairs says that some 600,000 children, out of a total of 1.3 million refugees, are now living in refugee camps in 24 provinces.

The commission said that 400,000 of the one million refugees recorded last year were children.

"The children were living in poor conditions, and facing malnutrition and illness. Many of them died," Arist said. "They were also unable to continue their studies," he said.

This year alone, the commission recorded at least 286 deaths among children aged between five and 24 years from malnutrition and various illnesses.

It also said that continuing communal violence had forced many children to actively participate in armed conflict and that neither state authorities nor the warring parties had taken this reality into account.

The commission added that, based on a report from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), around 1,236 children were forced to live apart from their parents or families.

Common cases of child abuse * 381 cases of violence * 390,000 children are sex workers * 12.5 million children drop out of school * 6.5 million children work to survive * 600,000 of 1.3 million displaced people are children