Expert says giving money to beggars worsens problem

JAKARTA (JP): Kindhearted city residents who give to beggars and vagrants are inadvertently fanning an increase in their numbers, a sociologist said at the weekend.

Sardjono Djatiman of the University of Indonesia told The Jakarta Post Saturday that beggars pour into the city around major holidays to prey on the good intentions of Jakartans.

"Vagrants and beggars take advantage of the situation on festive occasions.

"And because people tend to give money to them, they always come back to this city because they think there are prospects. After all, Jakarta is the center of economic activity."

Thousands of beggars and vagrants throng Jakarta's main roads and shopping centers at all times of the year, but their numbers swell during the upcoming Ramadhan fasting month.

Clothed in rags, the beggars, most from several villages in Central and West Java, use infants, the blind or the physically disabled to get the attention of passers-by and solicit funds.

"We can't ban people from giving the beggars money. People have the right to do that," Sardjono said.

But he recommended that people think before they give.

"If we become too accepting of their presence, we give them an opportunity to become lazy and insidious," he said.

Head of the city's public order office, Toha Reno, said some 1,000 vagrants and beggars arrive in the city every month.

He admitted there was no administrative regulation governing them.

"There is only the city bylaw No.11/1988 about disturbing public order, which carries a light sentence and fine.

"The best thing we can do for them is to get them off the streets and send them to the rehabilitation program, before sending them back home," Toha said.

He disclosed that a sweep to clear beggars from the city's streets, train stations, bus terminals and markets would begin this week.

According to Sardjono, hard times in their home villages had also encouraged beggars to try their luck in the capital.

"The prolonged dry season, the unsolved structural poverty problems in their villages, and the return of thousands of Indonesian workers from Saudi Arabia, are just a few conditions contributing to the existence of social outcasts in Jakarta," he said.

Migrant workers' earnings had been a boost to their families and villages -- but this source had now ended.

"Most of the workers come from small villages. They've been sent back to their homes and left jobless. Imagine what will they do now?"

Vagrant numbers are proliferating. Hundreds are living in makeshift shelters on several areas along the Gambir-Depok railway tracks.

Beggar Mukiyo, who came to the city with 22 friends and relatives, said he hoped he could collect at least Rp 10,000 daily during the next fasting month, which begins at the end of December.

"I'll use the money for the Idul Fitri post-fasting holiday in my hometown of Purworedjo, Central Java," the 45-year-old said.

The city municipality regularly conducts massive crackdowns against the beggars, who are viewed as harming Jakarta's image.

During April and October this year alone, the city's public order office arrested 3,585 vagrants, including 719 from the greater Jakarta area.

Those from Central and West Java have been returned to their hometowns, and local vagrants are sent to a social rehabilitation institution in Bekasi.

Sardjono hailed the city's effort but urged the central government to also play its part.

"The government can solve this problem properly if there is the good political will to crack down on the root of the problems, which is poverty in rural areas," he said. (07/ind)