Children's Day thoughts

Not surprisingly, National Children's Day passed almost unnoticed by most of us yesterday. Despite all the rhetoric about the need for greater attention to the plight and needs of those who hold this country's future in their hands, the grim reality is that little progress seems to have been made over the past few years to give our children the place in society they deserve.

Indeed, the plight seems to be growing considerably worse as the economic crisis bites deeper and deeper. Figures compiled by the Ministry of Manpower before the crisis began this time last year revealed that some 2.5 million Indonesian children aged between 10 and 14 were forced to work. With the innumerable layoffs which the ongoing crisis has caused, that number is believed to have swollen considerably.

Though no accurate figures are available yet, one only has to observe the growing swarms of children begging or peddling all kinds of goods at street corners and traffic lights in Jakarta. Three million are believed to be scourging the streets of Jakarta and other big cities across the country.

Child prostitution, which used to be comparatively rare, is reportedly thriving in cities such as Semarang, Surabaya and Yogyakarta, not to mention Jakarta. Thirty percent of female prostitutes in Indonesia are thought to be aged under 18 -- a figure that recent studies have confirmed for Semarang, the capital of Central Java.

Education is another social sector where children are not getting their due rights. As poverty levels mount, millions of children are being denied the right to a proper education -- and thereby the opportunity for a more decent life in the future.

Thus, although it has been eight years since Indonesia ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, children in this country still seem no closer to acquiring the rights they are entitled to under the most basic terms of the convention, which are to live and grow up in a safe and healthy environment. Indeed, growing poverty and hardships now make it seem unlikely that such a goal can be achieved any time in the foreseeable future.

The problem, it seems, is not so much that society and the government are not trying enough to promote children's welfare in this country. In fact, a number of programs were launched in the precrisis years for that purpose, either through neighborhood family welfare projects or other efforts undertaken by the various non-governmental organizations concerned with the advancement of children's rights.

One obvious handicap is the scarcity of funds, which prohibits such efforts from either achieving their maximum effect or reaching enough children in need of assistance. Another problem that children's welfare workers have mentioned is that not enough Indonesian adults seem to fully recognize the value and dignity of children. In its crudest form, this ignorance may manifest itself in cases of abuse, physical and sexual. In its more subtle form it could consist of denying a child the right to express her or his opinion -- a right clearly stated in the UN convention.

Amid all those challenges and shortcomings, though, this country can call itself fortunate that a growing number of Indonesians exist who are aware of the plight of this nation's children and are willing to reach out to them with the help and understanding which they so badly need.