Cured lepers brave heat to beg for a living

Cured lepers brave heat to beg for a living

Multa Fidrus
The Jakarta Post
Tangerang

Disgusting. That might be the comment that most people would
make when seeing them begging on the street or at other public
places here.

About 15 recovered lepers with dry skin, large open sores and
blood seeping from their knuckles, wrists or amputated legs sit
orderly in five rows at the intersection of Jl. Veteran and Jl.
TMP Taruna, Tangerang. Braving the heat of the sun, they stretch
out their hands to passing motorists, asking for money.

"This intersection is a safe site for us to beg, otherwise, we
would not be able to survive," said 37-year old Kalim, who
contracted leprosy when he was seven years old.

"I tried begging at road intersections in Jakarta on three
separate occasions, but each time I was caught by city public
order officers who then sent me to Kedoya Quarantine in West
Jakarta," said Kalim, referring to the shelter belonging to the
city's social agency.

Kalim, from Karawang, West Java, lives with some 450 other
recovered lepers at Lorong Lima in a complex provided by Sitanala
Hospital, located behind the hospital in Neglasari subdistrict,
Tangerang.

Kalim, who lost his left foot and all his fingers, said
recovered lepers used to receive monthly food supplies from the
hospital. But, since the hospital opened its doors to patients
suffering from other diseases a few years ago, each of the
recovered lepers only receives 10 kilograms of rice a month,
Kalim said, adding that he heard the supply would be halted next
December.

"Who is willing to employ a disabled and disgusting man like
me?" said Kalim, who is married to a healthy woman and is a
father of a 16-month-old baby.

He said that even though the hospital had confirmed that
recovered lepers would not be able to contaminate the disease to
others, it had still been very hard to convince their family
members, let alone the public.

Nurhasanah, 19, who lost her left leg, said she contracted
leprosy when she was 10 years old. All her family members, who
live in Bogor, had not visited her during the past six years.

"I want to be healthy and live a normal life like others, but
this is my fate and I have to face it alone. I feel sad when I
remember being rejected by my family when I once returned home. I
have decided to never return to them. I enjoy living as a beggar
in Tangerang," said the woman who had married a recovered leper.

Diman Sudarno, 46, who caught the disease in the early 1980s
said that he had to beg for money to buy medicine and to feed his
two healthy children and his 35-year-old wife called Umi.

He rents a small makeshift house for Rp 65,000 per month in
the leprosy complex.

All recovered lepers who become beggars deny the allegation
that they are organized by certain people or a certain group to
beg.

They said that on average they were able to bring home Rp
6,000 after spending eight hours begging at the intersection.

"We have to spend Rp 4,000 to rent a becak (pedicab) for
transportation. If the rain pours down we have no choice, but to
return home because there is no shelter," 52-year old Maah, a
mother of six children, who had spent five years at Sintanala
Hospital said.

"Rain is the only thing we are afraid of as lepers cannot
stand cold weather," she added.

She said all her children live in Pademangan subdistrict,
North Jakarta. Although her children do not reject her, Maah
realized that her presence would only bring embarrassment to her
children. That's why she prefers to be a beggar and live
peacefully in her community.

Meanwhile, Samsul Ma'arif, head of Tangerang Community
Empowerment Office, which is responsible for the handling of
beggars, alleged that the beggars were used by certain groups to
make money.

"They are purposely dropped by a certain group of people to
beg for money on Jl. Veteran-Jl. TMP Taruna traffic lights,"
Samsul told the Post.

He said the Tangerang municipal administration had no money
allocated for beggars even though Mayor M. Thamrin had given a
positive response to the budget proposal made by the office in
August.

"The only thing we can do now is to curb the increase in the
number of beggars," he said. But he failed to elaborate on the
measures to do so.