Govt plans concerted move to save child workers
Debbie A. Lubis, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Astri, 14, from Bunga Sari Japatan village, Indramayu West Java, has spent the past seven months of her life working in a Jakarta brothel.
She dropped out of elementary school four years ago when she was in the fourth grade and decided to earn money for her poor family.
"My parents do not mind me working as a hooker because it is commonplace for girls in my village but I do not want to work like this forever. I will quit this job after I can buy some farmland or if there is someone wishing to marry me," she said.
Astri's tragic story portrays the country's child labor condition. According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, as of the year 2000, there were around 2.3 million children aged between 10 and 14 working at filthy, sleazy and dangerous places throughout the country.
Warsini, head of the Child Labor section at the Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration said that those children would soon secure protection from the country as next month President Megawati Soekarnoputri would issue a decree prohibiting the worst forms of child labor.
"As soon as the decree takes effect, we will launch a national action plan which includes a program to save child laborers, especially those who work on fishing boats, in prostitution, mining, the footwear industry and drug trafficking," she said.
Speaking at a discussion held by the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the Indonesian Child Welfare Foundation (YKAI) on Monday, Warsini said that the success of the program, which will run for five years, relied much on solid cooperation among related ministries, non-governmental organizations, prominent figures and businesspeople.
Sharing her view, Pandji Putranto, the national program coordinator at the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labor (IPEC), suggested that the child labor saving programs be linked with other social programs implemented by other ministries, such as poverty eradication, compulsory education, the social safety net (JPS) and legal protection for children.
Pandji attributed child labor to poverty.
"Some of the children have to work in order to survive while some others are the family breadwinners. Most of them drop out of school since they cannot afford to pay the school fees."
ILO recorded in 2000 that some 8 million Indonesian children between the ages of seven and 15, were doing adult jobs. Data from the Ministry of National Education showed that 17.7 million children aged between seven and 15 had dropped out of school in the same period.
Pandji suggested that the Ministry of Social Affairs should insist that parents who received social funds from the JPS program must also send their children to school and the government impose severe punishment to parents or businesspeople who exploited children in industry.
He said that children who worked in their early stages of life would have problems with their health, social interaction and emotional stability.
"Child labor will extend to the country's poverty cycle and the country will produce an abundance of unskilled and uneducated human resources," Pandji said.
The House of Representatives is deliberating upon a bill on children protection which stipulates a punishment for anyone who discriminates against children under 18 or treats them unfairly, neglects them, practices violent or bad manners toward them, or exploits them economically, physically or socially.
The draft says that such a person could face a maximum sentence of 10 years in jail and fine of Rp 200 million.