Jakarta street kids abused and neglected

Jakarta street kids abused and neglected

The following articles were written for The Jakarta Post
in conjunction with this year's National Children Day. The
author, Natalie Jette, is a Canadian and a founding member of
PEKAT, an organization working for the economic empowerment of
marginalized children in Indonesia. Jette lives in Jakarta and
can be contacted at pekat_indo@yahoo.ca.

Two years ago I moved to Indonesia to work for a Canadian
engineering company in Jakarta. Shocked and disgusted by the
condition of the children in this city, I left my job to join an
organization determined to do something about this crisis.

For the past year I have lived together with these children in
their communities. I have witnessed remarkable struggles of
survival pitted against a heinous international system that
exploits these children and then profits from their suffering.

Their stories are both a cry for help and call to arms for
those of us fortunate enough to be in a position where we can do
something about it.

The first time I saw Heri he was lying alone and unconscious
in a hospital bed. The 12-year-old was thrown from the roof of a
train when his arm struck the 25,000-volt electric wire running
above the tracks. He was rushed to the hospital by a group of his
friends.

After several weeks in the hospital the doctors amputated his
left hand and released him, knowing he had no money for the drugs
he needed. Two weeks later his arm was so infected it required
another amputation, this time up to the elbow, plus three fingers
from his remaining hand.

Some of the other street children stole his amputated hand out
of the operating room and kept it in a glass jar for months. The
enormous piece of charred flesh bore no resemblance to a hand,
but Heri became a temporary celebrity and his former hand a
cherished symbol of the struggle of these kids against a
government that does not seem to care whether they live or die.

By the time Heri's ordeal was finally over, he was so
traumatized that for weeks he didn't speak. He was too ashamed of
his appearance to face his friends, and preferred to spend his
time alone. He refused all charity offered to him. Eventually, he
just sort of disappeared.

Born into severe poverty, many children like Heri are forced
to leave their families when their basic needs cannot be met.
Children as young as six travel thousands of miles alone, making
their way to Jakarta with literally nothing but the shirt on
their back.

Today, Jakarta is home to over 40,000 of these street
children, most of whom drink, smoke, take drugs and
sniff glue on a daily basis.

Many children are already addicted to Aibon glue, even after
seeing their friends drop dead from its use. They say they do it
because it numbs them and makes it easier to face the constant
feelings of hunger and loneliness. They have nothing to live for
but each other, but somehow, together, they press on.

In another corner of the city, Dian waits for her first
customer of the evening. At 14, she's already a professional --
working 12-hour nights in East Jakarta's notorious public park.

Dian and her friends work all night, sleep in the afternoon,
and then go back to work again. Most of their customers are Army
members. A constant supply of drugs and alcohol keeps them wired
throughout the night, and severely depressed during the few hours
of daylight they see.

This is a community of children where permanent smiles mask a
culture of substance abuse, self-mutilation and chronic
depression.

Why is Dian there? She's a very gifted child -- bright,
talented and engaging. However, this child has a mother, a father
and seven younger brothers and sisters to support back in her
village. She wasn't abducted from her village, and she's not a
prisoner of her pimp. She's there because, at age 14, she is
responsible for the survival of her family, with the US$30 a
month that she gives them all that they have.

One of her roommates is a girl named Reni. At 16, Reni is
already a divorcee and paying a heavy price for her failed
marriage. Social stigma and the need to provide for her parents
drew Reni to Jakarta in search of work.

As a divorced woman with a primary school education and no
work experience, her employment opportunities (and future
marriage prospects) were bleak. Indonesian law sealed Reni's fate
with legislation stating that anyone who has ever been married is
no longer a child under the law, and is therefore not permitted
to enter or reenter the school system.

So, Reni joined her friend Dian in the darkness of the park
where she has worked for over a year now.

The park is dangerous, filled with drug addicts and armed
criminals. But the biggest threat comes from the law enforcement
officers. Police raid the park almost every night, chasing the
children with batons and arresting them.

The pimps are conveniently left alone, and later make their
way to the police station to pay Rp 50,000 for the release of
each girl. The children are terrified of the police. Not only for
the raids, but the children also fear being gang-raped by police
officers patrolling the park. For the children who work in this
park, the law has come to represent nothing more than an
instrument of abuse and indignity.

There are other children in the Indonesian sex industry even
more ill-fated than Reni and Dian. These are the thousands of
girls living as prisoners in high-rise dumps serving as centers
for child prostitution, gambling and other crooked business
activities.

One night, with the help of a friend who is male and
Indonesian, I was able to enter one of these brothels. We were
led through endless rows of beds and mats with girls, some
looking no more than 8 years old, just waiting to be picked out
by a customer.

There were rats everywhere, and blacklists on the walls with
names of girls who had escaped, or perhaps just disappeared.

Military vehicles packed with armed soldiers patrol these
complexes every night. They circle around the buildings
protecting the businesses, defending the public interest. In this
place, little girls are turned into goods, commodities in a
monstrous industry where corrupt individuals in their own
government are serious players, and where outsiders are too
afraid of the potential consequences to risk getting involved.

The stories of the children I have come to know are far from
unique.

Child labor in Indonesia is estimated to affect as many as 10
million children, with almost two million street children and
400,000 child sex workers. According to UNICEF, the increasing
number of these children threatens to create a "lost generation"
of Indonesians.

How did millions of Indonesian children end up being labeled a
future lost generation? Indonesia has already ratified all the UN
Conventions -- the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the
Convention for the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination
Against Women and numerous International Labor Organization
conventions regulating and prohibiting many forms of child labor.
Unfortunately, these pieces of paper signed at high-profile
international conventions have not amounted to much for the half
of the population currently living below the poverty line, and
all of their children.

Two months ago world leaders gathered once again on behalf of
the Dians, Renis and Heris of the world -- this time at the UN
Special Session on Children in New York. UNICEF executive
director Carol Bellamy praised the hard work of the participating
governments during the three-day fanfare: "We have a document the
world and its children can be proud of."

The Indonesian representative, Minister of Health Achmad
Sujudi, expressed his country's unwavering commitment to its
children, and listed all of the UN Conventions and Protocols that
his government had signed since the last time the international
community gathered on behalf of children (10 years ago at the
World Summit for Children). Congratulations were had all around,
and then everybody went home, knowing that it doesn't really
matter.