Over 30 million Indonesian children at risk from abuse

Over 30 million Indonesian children at risk from abuse

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

About a dozen children, each with a piece of paper and a pen in
hand, gathered together and were engaged in a serious discussion.

They may look like ordinary children but they have experiences
that many people could never imagine.

They are abused street children.

"Nita" (not her real name), 11, a polite girl with tattoos on
her right hand, said she was raped by a man last year.

Another girl, "Sita", 12, wore a headscarf to cover her bald
head. Her unemployed father shaved her hair as she was hung
upside down by her feet last month. Her crime: She refused to
heed her father's order to drop out of school to become a street
beggar.

"Gino", a 12-year-old boy was sodomized by a man. Traumatized
by the incident that happened last year, he became clinically
paranoid. He is now able to communicate with men, but unable to
hide his fear and suspicions of them.

"The grown ups like to hit us and say dirty words to us. We
don't like it, it hurts," Sita told The Jakarta Post recently.

Her friend, "Dwi", added that he wished he was an adult so
that no other adults would abuse him any longer.

"I am helpless when an adult abuses me, nobody cares, not even
my family. I have to get money for food by singing and begging on
the streets," he said.

The 13-year-old Dwi said that in April of last year his mother
forced him to leave school and make money by begging on the
street.

"She said that I had to earn Rp 700,000 a year. But on one
day, I could only get Rp 4,000," he said. He then decided to make
fast money by stealing a sidemirror from a car which stopped at a
traffic light in Prumpung, East Jakarta.

He was caught and was jailed for two months.

Sharing their heart-breaking stories, the children were
working hand-in-hand on a project to make a documentary film
about their lives on the streets. The project, facilitated by the
Indonesian Women's Coalition for Justice and Democracy (KPI), is
aimed at making their dream come true: To make adults stop
violating children.

Violations against street children are only the tip of an
iceberg of rampant child abuse around the country as such cases
also occur in well-educated and financially secure families.

Data from the National Commission for Child Protection showed
last year there were over 60 million children under 15 years old
in the country. At least 1.6 million of them are child laborers.

Dian Kartika Sari, the coordinator for the public policy
division of KPI, which provides legal aid for women and children,
estimated that 60 percent of the children around the country are
at risk for abuse, pointing to underaged workers, street children
and child prostitutes.

The grown ups violate children since the latter have no way to
get revenge, said Dian. Most adults, too, are ignorant of
children's rights.

Worse, there is no place for the children to get protection as
their parents, relatives and teachers, are often the people who
abuse them. The police, too, usually do not take seriously a
child who reports a violation case without being accompanied by
an adult.

Unfortunately, the state does not consider child abuse a
serious crime. In fact, there are several articles in the
Criminal Code on crimes against children. However, the articles
of the law only cover sexual abuse.

"The government has not shown its willingness to respect
children's rights. We have ratified the International Convention
on Children's Rights through Presidential Decree No. 36/1990, but
it has never been implemented," Dian said.

The convention stipulates children's rights, including the
right to adequate protection, love, sufficient education and
health services. It also requires the government to protect
children from sexual abuse or exploitation of any kind.

The government, in this case, the State Minister of Women's
Empowerment Sri Redjeki Soemaryoto, is currently trying to decide
on approval of a bill on Child Protection, which was deliberated
upon by the House of Representatives last year. If the ministry
endorses it, the bill will once again be sent back to the
legislature for final approval and possibly enacted into law. It
can become a very long process.

"Our life, our country's future depends on the children of
today, the government has no other choice but to prioritize
children in its policies," Dian asserted.

Children from around the world recently met at the United
Nations children's summit to discuss their problems and demand
the governments to respect children's rights.