Misery and pain not yet over

Misery and pain not yet over

Hendarsyah Tarmizi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Yanto, a 12-year old, has to wake up early in the morning to
begin his day as a newspaper boy, while his friends of the same
age enjoy their sleep on comfortable beds.

His morning job lasts only about four hours a day, but it is
only one part of his routine. In the afternoon, he has another
job, helping his uncle sell fruit in the town.

For the first six months, Yanto was able to remain at school
but after that, he was suspended. With his new "profession",
Yanto found it difficult to divide his time between work and
study.

Yanto is one of the victims of the country's worst ever
economic crisis, which started to shake up the country's business
activities in late 1997.

Millions of workers, mostly in the construction sector and
labor-intensive industries, lost their jobs when the crisis
peaked in the middle of 1998.

Yanto and hundreds, if not thousands, of other teenagers have
been forced to share their families' burden as their fathers,
whom they were once able to rely on, can no longer support their
households.

Although Yanto's father has taken up another job as a
neighborhood night guard, his income of about Rp 150,000 (roughly
US$15) per month is far from enough to buy daily necessities for
the family.

The crisis, which jacked up prices more than three-fold due to
the fall in the value of the rupiah, further worsened the
situation. With less money, if there is any at all, they have to
spend more.

Three years have passed, but the crisis is not yet over.
Although the economy has showed healthy signs of recovery since
early last year, only a few job openings are available.

Almost every street corner in Jakarta and other big cities is
still crowded with teenagers, either busking or selling goods.

A 10-year old girl carrying her three-year-old sibling on her
hip while begging at a traffic light or busking on a crowded bus
is still an unusual scene.

Over the years, the street has become everything to them. They
have built their own community, mixing with adult traders,
beggars, street singers and even pickpockets. They can no longer
differentiate between good and bad. Fighting and stealing have
become part of the business.

Are they wrong? Maybe, but the truth is that most of them are
hungry.

The street children's misery does not stop there. They have
often been forced into sex work and prostitution.

According to the results of research conducted by the Jakarta-
based Atmajaya University, such children are often abused or
sodomized within their first three months on the street.

Although the survey was carried out in early 1998, it seems
the data are still valid for the current situation.

Thousands of children displaced due to racial conflicts in
Ambon and Central Kalimantan, and their East Timorese friends in
the Atambua refugee camp in East Nusa Tenggara Timor, present
another bleak picture of the country's children.

According to data provided by UNICEF, over six million
Indonesian children aged between six and 15 years are not in
school. They either never enrolled or dropped out. This is so in
spite of the government's policy of compulsory education up to
the age of 15. Many of them are now engaged in hazardous or
exploitative forms of child labor.

UNICEF says that about 150,000 children are homeless and live
unprotected on the streets of Indonesia's major cities. "An
estimated 40,000 are child sex workers," the agency said in a
report.

About six million of Indonesia's 23 million children aged
below five are also under-weight and malnourished. More than half
of the under-fives have "hidden hunger" deficiencies of vitamin
A, iron and zinc.

In its annual report, which was released in September this
year, UNICEF said that despite outstanding examples of progress
on children's welfare in the last decade, most governments had
not lived up to the promises made at the 1990 Summit for
Children.

According to the report,The State of the World's Children
2002, more than 10 million children aged under five still die
each year from preventable causes; 149 million children in
developing countries still suffer from malnutrition; more than
100 million are still not at primary school (the majority of them
girls); and millions are still caught up in child labor,
trafficking, prostitution and conflicts.

The Indonesian government has made numerous efforts to cope
with school dropouts, malnutrition and child abuse. The private
sector has also made a significant contribution, but there is
still unfinished business. More should be done to ensure that
today's children will become our future.

The problems facing children are highly complex, but ignoring
them in the early years will destroy their entire lives.