Middle class families 'should help the poor'

Middle class families 'should help the poor'

JAKARTA (JP): Sociologist Paulus Wirutomo urged middle class
families to help the poor in order to minimize social instability
as the crisis thrusts millions of Indonesians below the poverty
line.

The University of Indonesia political science professor told a
seminar on Saturday that more and more people were finding it
difficult to feed themselves, a situation which could make it
easy for certain groups to incite poor communities to riot.

"The middle class should start helping them. Some middle class
people have actually found themselves sliding into poverty
because they lost their jobs (in the economic crisis)," Paulus
said.

The International Labor Organization (ILO) reported last
Tuesday that 37 percent of the population, about 75 million
people, was living below the poverty line as of mid-1998 and that
as many as 140 million people, or 66 percent of the population,
would be below the poverty line by next year should the crisis
persist.

Indonesia's middle class, categorized as families with a
salary coming from professional, administrative and managerial
occupations, accounted for less than 10 percent of the population
before the crisis, according to the ILO.

As many as 5.4 million people will have lost their jobs by
year's end since January as businesses throughout the country
have been forced into bankruptcy.

Among the most affected by the crisis are children. The United
Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) has said that multiple threats
to the health, well-being and basic education of Indonesia's
children constitute an international emergency.

Unicef's executive director Carol Bellamy said some four
million Indonesian children belowe the age of two were already
severely malnourished and more than 30 percent of the children
were at risk of failing to complete primary school.

She also called last month for sustained international aid to
save the lives of Indonesian children.

Paulus suggested that middle class families could begin by
helping poor families in their own neighborhood. Whatever
assistance is extended, the poor would feel emotionally supported
and the social gap would be reduced, he argued.

Non-governmental organizations could also help reduce social
tensions by offering a forum for people to vent their
frustrations so there would be less of a chance for communities
to be manipulated into massive rioting.

The seminar was organized by Sinar Wijaya Foundation in
cooperation with the National Coordinating Board for Family
Planning. It also featured health experts and psychologists. (01)