Poverty eradication program not helping poor
Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Two-year-old Obi lies on a plain bed in a plastic lean-to near a garbage site on the banks of the West Flood Canal, Tanah Abang subdistrict, Central Jakarta.
His mother, Ocah, 30, Obi and his sister Lia, 10, sleep on the two by 1.5 meter bed every night in the cold wind. Saman, 60, a scavenger, who is the father of the two children, joins them sometimes.
"We put on mosquito repellent every night so mosquitoes won't bite us," said Ocah, who is waiting for her husband to come home.
Saman collects junk, such as plastic bottles, scrap metal, paper and cardboard.
They have slightly better lodgings in Kracak village, Cileungsi, Bogor regency, but Ocah chose to live in Jakarta and sort the junk collected by her husband from all over the capital.
"We have no job in my village," said Ocah, who hails from Kracak village in Cileungsi.
"If I had enough money, I'd stay in our village and take care of my children properly," she told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.
She joined her husband, who has worked in Jakarta for years, two months ago because his income had continuously decreased.
The family's daily income from selling junk is around Rp 20,000 (US$2.10).
Lia is still registered as a fourth grade student in an elementary school in Kracak, but has been absent since living in Jakarta with her parents.
"I did ask her to stay with her grandparents in Bogor, but she chose to live with us here," said Ocah.
The family's next door neighbor, 35-year-old Ami, is also a scavenger from Bogor who has an 11-year-old daughter, Yanti.
Yanti dropped out of school to live with her widowed mother.
Neither Ocah or Ami receive any assistance from the city administration because they are not registered as Jakarta residents.
Assistance for poor people living in Jakarta include free health services and subsidized rice. However, they can only apply for assistance if they have valid Jakarta identity cards.
The poor conditions of Jakarta's low-income people came to the surface recently following reports that scavenger Supriono could not afford to bury his deceased daughter.
Supriono's daughter, Khaerunisa, 3, died of dehydration caused by acute diarrhea as he had no money to take her to a doctor.
Many other children live in poverty with little hope of a better life in Jakarta, a city of around 12 million people.
Dozens of children are forced by their parents to beg on the last Tanah Abang-Serpong train every night. Or beg on the streets.
Despite the city allocation of over Rp 1 trillion for poverty eradication, poor children remain untouched by such schemes because their parents are not registered as Jakarta residents.