Humane treatment of job-seekers

Humane treatment of job-seekers

or

Humane treatment for job-seekers

Beginning next week, the city administration will launch an
operation to reorganize Jakarta's demographic population in
anticipation of an influx of newcomers from throughout the region
at the end of Idul Fitri.

As in previous years, Jakarta residents returning from their
home villages will bring along thousands of friends or relatives.

Overall, these pilgrims come in search of jobs in the capital
though they are, more often than not, just trying their luck --
as opposed to using their professional backgrounds to
systematically apply for work.

It is these newcomers who eventually become part of the city's
burgeoning, often informal, economy as manual laborers, domestic
servants, hawkers, sidewalk vendors or sometimes more skilled
workers like barbers or mechanics.

Jakarta is indeed a draw for lots of would-be settlers --
particularly for those from regions lacking adequate resources or
infrastructure to provide job opportunities. Their villages have
hardly any land to cultivate, nor do they offer employment in the
form of factories or offices.

As Indonesian citizens, they deserve the right to earn a
living anywhere in the country. Under the difficult economic
conditions of today, Jakarta has no real way of restricting the
arrival of job seekers either.

The newcomers, too, are obliged to heed the rules, however. In
general, those wishing to settle here are required to hold
identity cards, contribute to public order and grow accustomed to
the norms of urban conduct, among other things.

It is our hope that the city government will put an even
greater emphasis on a humane approach to these new arrivals at
the first opportunity.

This can only happen when officials in charge of population
affairs develop an empathy for their plight, and try better to
understand them for who they are -- ordinary human beings.

-- Warta Kota, Jakarta