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)