Child workers will total 5 million by 2008
Child workers will total 5 million by 2008
By T. Sima Gunawan
OSLO (JP): Indonesia will have on its hands the problem of 5
million child workers and other vulnerable children by 2008, a
government official said.
Suyono Yahya, secretary to the office of the Coordinating
Minister for People's Welfare, described vulnerable children as
those coming from poor families who are likely to also be forced
to work for income.
Suyono pointed out that child labor is a reality facing not
only Indonesia, but even developed countries such as the United
States.
He said on Sunday that Indonesia is applying policies with
various approaches for the "virtual" elimination of child labor.
"I call it 'virtual' because child labor can't really be
eliminated... no matter how hard the government's effort is to
fight it."
Suyono was in Oslo to attend the International Conference on
Child Labour.
The International Labour Organization says there are 250
million working children worldwide. In Indonesia, the number of
child workers is currently around 2 million, according to Suyono.
In the problem, "education is the key issue," Suyono said.
Poverty is the main cause of child labor and the government is
seriously committed to reduce poverty, Suyono said.
He conceded that in some cases displacement due to development
activities was the reason for poverty, as was true for farmers
whose land was appropriated for industrial estates.
"But that's not the general situation. Most people become poor
because of backwardness... We have 22 million poor people in this
country. Are they all poor because they had to give up their
land?"
He reminded developed nations that they agreed in a 1970
summit in Rio de Janeiro to provide 0.7 percent of their GNP for
Official Development Assistance (ODA) to developing countries. In
practice, they now give only 0.3 percent of their GNP, he said.
The Oslo Conference is expected to renew the commitment of
developed countries to fulfill the Rio agreement "as soon as
possible".
Early this month, Japan, which is the world's largest aid
donor, declared it would cut its international aid budget by at
least 10 percent next year and keep it down in years to come.
The planned cut in its development assistance budget, which
would start in April 1998, would be the first for Japan since its
ODA program started in 1954. Japan decided to cut its budget
because its budget deficit is reportedly the worst of all major
advanced industrialized nations today.
In fiscal 1997, which runs to March 1998, Japan's government
set aside 1.17 trillion yen (US$9.7 billion) for its ODA general
account budget, financed by taxpayers. Its operational budget,
which also is financed through loans, totaled 1.68 trillion yen.
Japan's ODA in 1996 dropped for the first time in dollar terms
since 1990 -- falling 35 percent from the previous year to $9.44
billion largely due to the yen's sharp depreciation against the
dollar, the report said.
In 1996, Indonesia was the largest recipient of Japan's ODA,
receiving $965.5 million, followed by China with $861.7 million,
Thailand with $664 million, India with $579.3 million and the
Philippines with $414.5 million.
The other top 10 recipients were Pakistan, Mexico, Egypt,
Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.