Children's rights campaign starts

Children's rights campaign starts

BANDUNG: A children's rights campaign began here on Wednesday
with a call for the government to pay serious attention to the at
least 150,000 children living in refugee camps throughout the
archipelago.

Arist Merdeka Sirait, director of the National Commission for
the Protection of Children, said that the children of families
victimized by a series of sectarian clashes had an uncertain
future as the government had been too slow in helping them.

The 150,000 children included under-fives suffering from
malnutrition and trauma, he said, citing the more than 1,000
children who died in Sambas due to a shortage of potable water.

"Some 5,000 refugee children in the island of Buton, Sulawesi,
are suffering from malnutrition, and 6,000 pregnant women are
lacking proper medical treatment," he said.

The prolonged "civil war" in Aceh had also resulted in poverty
among the people. More than 10,000 Acehnese children living in
eight refugee centers in Medan were now suffering from
malnutrition, he said.

"The Commission found in July of this year that children under
15 years old in four of the refugee camps were prone to sexual
exploitation. Meanwhile, in West Timor 50,000 children under 12
years of age are suffering from malnutrition." (25/sur)