Improper shelters cause problems for kids

Improper shelters cause problems for kids

JAKARTA (JP): An activist has called on the management of
halfway houses which shelter street children to separate boys and
girls to protect them from sexual abuse.

"With shared housing like the way it is now, street girls are
vulnerable to sexual abuse from the opposite sex and it will
encourage prostitution at an early age," Abdillah of the Gema
Mandiri Bangsa Foundation (YGMB) told the daily newspaper Suara
Karya.

Jakarta has hundreds of halfway houses managed either by the
government or nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to help
overcome the city's problem of street children.

Experts estimated there were about 40,000 street children in
Jakarta. They are classified as either "children of the street,"
as children who have no parental relations and make a living by
selling newspapers, sweets, polishing shoes or begging, or
"children on the street," as those who still went to school but
had to work to help their parents.

Abdillah said street girls left halfway houses to avoid the
boys and often slept on side streets in front of shops and office
buildings, which subjected them to physical assault.

He said street boys under 15 years old tended to experiment
with new activities, including sex. He said he made an appeal
following reports from several NGOs on their finding that there
were indeed cases of sexual abuse in halfway houses.

Social researcher Nancy Sumarno told The Jakarta Post on
Saturday that there was no accurate data on sexual abuse cases
among street children.

She said the risk of abuse was high among street children
since most were at the age of puberty, which is when they become
sexually active.

"These children need proper sex education, especially about
HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases," she said.

She said ideally halfway houses were also equipped with books
to encourage street children to learn how to read and write, and
receive a visit from mobile clinics for free medical treatment.

Some NGOs have embarked on a program to educate the children
and equip them with vocational skills, but little has been done
to improve their health and nutritional intake due to a lack of
funding.

For street children, Nancy said, there was little justice for
violence committed against them as some law officers were among
those who abuse them. (06)