RI children facing deeper crisis
By Reiner Simanjuntak
JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1990 but many still question the implementation of these rights in the country. The economic crisis is even more threatening to these rights. The Jakarta Post interviewed Arist Merdeka Sirait, a child rights activist with the Indonesian Committee for the Creative Education of Child Labor Foundation, to share his views.
Question: What's your assessment on the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in Indonesia?
Arist: It's very poor. Although the government has always been making propaganda of its commitment on children's rights, the truth is that the four fundamental rights of children for education, protection, welfare and to grow and develop have never really been delivered.
Although we have the National Education System Law, which stipulates that every child is entitled to have at least a nine- year basic education level, the implementation is far from satisfying.
Legally speaking, the rights of Indonesian children are weak; Indonesia has no special law for child protection. And we also have no law on health. How can you provide protection and welfare for children when you don't have these basic laws? This is a serious problem.
President (B.J.) Habibie has instructed that Indonesian children must continue to receive an education despite the current economic crisis by abolishing the enrollment fee. But without any government regulation to support this, it would only be a mere appeal.
From the political perspective, children's right to participate in development is also very weak because it has never been included in the country's five-year State Policy Guidelines.
With such a condition, children have no place in the country's development process.
One example is that real estate developers have never put children's playgrounds as a priority in designing their housing projects. This is against the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which stipulates that playgrounds be given priority over other facilities.
It's so naive when the government keeps shouting that the children are the nation's next generation while it has never delivered their rights. These all indicate that the children's rights have never truly been appreciated.
The poor realization of child rights in Indonesia was also the result of the government's economic policy, which has been biased toward large business groups by way of rampant nepotism, collusion and corruption. This has caused many poor families to become even poorer, forcing their children to quit school and work either in the industrial sector or on the street. Child exploitation in industry and on the street is very high.
Q: Could you elaborate this?
A: Sending children to work in factories is already considered as exploitation because it's the adults who should be working there. This exploitation is strongly opposed by the convention.
Children working in industry would suffer moral degradation because they would get used to a cash economy.
Their intelligence quality would also be eroded because they're instructed to perform the same duty every day. They would lose creativity and initiative.
In terms of IQ development, children working on the street are more creative because they're always demanded to create something to make money with the very limited resources they have.
Child labor, especially girls age 14 years to 15 years, is also vulnerable to sexual harassment because they're usually working till late in the evening. And most child laborers are girls.
Q: Why?
A: Most families tend to prioritize the education budget for the boys and send the girls out to work. Girls are second-class family members, including when it comes to food rationing. It's a cultural thing. The industry also prefers the girls because they're considered more accurate (in working) compared to boys, who are more careless.
Q: Why are children working in industry?
A: The economic factor is the primary reason for families in sending their children to factories to get additional cash to sustain their daily livelihood.
These industries prefer employing children because they don't join labor unions, don't need health insurance, are less demanding and can be paid lower wage but are able to perform the work of adults with the same working hours.
The daily wage of a child working eight hours to 12 hours is between Rp 3,000 to Rp 4,000, compared to more than Rp 5,000 for an adult worker. A company employing 200 children would surely benefit from this.
Government supervision on this issue is very weak, and it keeps saying that, administratively, there is no child labor in the industrial sector because all of the workers are over 18.
This is because many child laborers have been forced by workplaces to fake their age when they submit their application letters. They do this by bribing the local administration officials for a letter of recommendation. In our frequent informal gatherings with working children, they unanimously claimed that they're 18 although physically they look much younger.
If the government doesn't admit this fact, don't expect a special law for child protection to be issued. Sending children to work is another form of modern slavery.
Q: What's the impact of the current crisis on children?
A: The economic crisis will send more children to the industrial sector, the streets and into prostitution. Our estimation is that the number of working children, including in prostitution, has soared to 5.1 million since July, 1997, when the crisis started. This is a huge increase compared to 2.1 million in 1996, according to the Central Statistics Bureau.
Sending children to work is the easiest alternative for parents who have been out of work due the crisis. Many factories are now downsizing or even closing their operations.
Our findings show that many of the children now working have parents who had previously worked in the construction sector, which is the most badly hit by the economic downturn.
Since these unemployed adults are already in the age bracket of 40 years to 50 years, industries do not accept them to work at the plants. Instead, the industries prefer their young children, who can be paid lower wages.
Many industries are now also in a very difficult situation. There is a trend now in that industries are displacing their adult workers to be replaced with children as a cost-saving measure. This includes exporters like textile, garment and shoemakers which are now creating smaller home industries employing children.
The number of street children is also increasing. What's worrying is that more children are being sent into prostitution because it's the only way for those who are unable to get formal jobs in the industrial sector. We anticipate that there will be many children sent to tourism destinations to become prostitutes. This includes young boys.
It doesn't look worrying at the moment because the tourism industry has also dropped due to the current political instability. So we're grateful for this. But once tourism starts to grow again, the problem will become severe.
Q: How should the government anticipate this?
A: In the very short term, the government must provide a crash program to help the economy of the poor because it's the economic factor which is primarily causing children to work.
The government must also be active in promoting child rights, including pushing children back to school. Both formal and informal education is an effective tool in reducing child exploitation.
The government should also be more cooperative with non- government organizations (NGOs) by providing them with more space in advocating for child rights. Don't treat us like the enemy.
The control from the NGOs is not meant to lower the dignity of the bureaucracy. The government should be grateful that there is a control mechanism provided by the NGOs. A bureaucracy without outside control would only lead to its destruction.
The government must also stop plans to enact the 1997 Labor Law. Clause 95 stipulates that businesses are not allowed to employ children, but clause 96 says that children who "must" work are allowed only for four hours a day.
To me, a law product which has contradictory clauses cannot be accepted. Also, the new law doesn't provide real protection for laborers. So how can the law protect child laborers?