Children face tight competition for space
Leony Aurora, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
One afternoon, a bunch of children were kicking around a ball in an empty field when suddenly a woman -- clad in training pants and clutching a cassette of dance music -- arrived.
The young football players fled. "Women keep on using this place for aerobics," they told architect John Fredy Bobby Saragih, who was conducting research in the area. "And they're not getting any thinner."
Sidelined as they were, these children are luckier than most as places to play in the city are scarce. Another park that Saragih visited had a "children's playground" sign, but had gradually been taken over by becak drivers as a place of rest and relaxation.
"City kids of poor families tend to play on the roads and river banks," said Saragih at a seminar on child-friendly cities, organized by the Indonesian Children's Welfare Foundation (YKAI), Pelangi Foundation, and Bina Nusantara University, on Tuesday.
United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) data shows that at present, 43 percent of Indonesians under the age of 18 live in cities. This figure is predicted to rise to 60 percent by 2025.
Unicef says a "child-friendly" city allows children to express their opinions and thus help to influence the administration's decisions. They should receive proper health, education and sanitation services, and be safe to walk in the streets.
They also have the rights to open green areas, to meet and play with friends, and live in an unpolluted environment.
"We don't have to actualize all these things at once," said Hamid Patilima of YKAI.
The concept of child-friendly cities was first acknowledged at the City Summit in Istanbul, Turkey, in 1996. It has been introduced in Indonesia by YKAI since May 2004.
Calcutta in India adopted the concept by focusing on street and working children and introduced "child-friendly police".
Andi Rahmah, a researcher with Pelangi, suggested the government provide bicycle lanes for children to ride to school. Communities could also commit to driving slowly in housing complexes. "The probability of an accident being fatal, if a vehicle is moving slower than 15 kilometers/hour, is only 5 percent," she said.
Saragih asserted that when playgrounds are combined for other purposes, "the law of the jungle applies. The weakest will lose, and kids usually do."
Parks should be near children's homes, which would also help ease parents' anxiety, as they could easily monitor their loved ones.
Outdoor activities develop children's motor skills, as well as promote self-confidence and social interaction, said psychologist Fitriani Syahrul. But youngsters from mid- and high-income families usually spend their time at home playing computer games, or go to malls, which could encourage consumerism, she added.
Jakarta, says Agung Sukaton of the City Parks Agency, "is just not suitable for children." With at least 10 million inhabitants, the standards for a "child-friendly" city are too high, he said, adding that the capital's ideal population would be more like 5 million.