Our children's rights
Not all of us may see the same degree of urgency in the call which activist Arist Merdeka Sirait made on Monday. Yet, the idea of setting up an independent organization to watch over the treatment of our children -- somewhat along the lines of the National Commission on Human Rights -- certainly deserves our attention today as we commemorate National Children's Day. It is no secret that, although there has been exemplary progress in the advancement of child welfare in this country over the past few decades, much more has to be done.
It is not the first time Indonesians have called for a watchdog organization to be set up. A similar proposal was made little more than a week ago by Irwanto, an academic at Atmajaya Catholic University in Jakarta. Irwanto was speaking at a seminar on child protection, held in Jakarta last week in the lead-up to National Children's Day. As the head of the university's community development study center, he proposed the setting up of an independent institution to guarantee that the rights of children are protected in accordance with the 1990 international Children's Rights Convention, of which Indonesia is a signatory.
There has been extensive media exposure of violations committed against children in this country in previous months and much thought has been given to the protection of their rights. Therefore, it seems reasonable to expect that the national child protection campaign that is slated to be launched today can have at least some effect on our efforts to improve this long-standing problem. There is no doubt that improvements are needed.
It is a well known fact that in this country, as in most developing nations, the problem of child protection is one that is intertwined with a vast range of prevailing socioeconomic conditions. The question of child labor, for instance, is not easily solved, since in many cases it is a problem of survival, not only of the children involved, but of their families as well.
Considering the need to survive, manual jobs in factories and workshops, though ill suited to children, are perhaps still among the ones to be preferred. Being forced to give up a child's natural need for play or school is bad enough. But poverty often compels children to undertake, or accept, chores that are not only unsuitable but often filled with risk. One only has to recall the newspaper reports of the past few months of children falling prey to child molesters. A few have died in the hands of these criminals.
How many children are forced to live, or exist, in this manner is not precisely known. At best, an estimate of child labor is all that can be offered. A rough, UN estimate is that about 250 million children are forced to work for a living throughout the developing world, mainly in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Indonesia may consider itself fortunate that although child labor is still a necessary evil, the number of child laborers in this country -- and other booming economies in Southeast Asia -- is believed to be decreasing.
Nevertheless, it is never too early for serious efforts to be made to improve the lot of our children. In their hands lies the future of our country and our nation. It is imperative that we start making every effort to prepare our youngest generation for the challenges they will face in the future.