Child abuse widespread in 2001, commission reports

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