RI children facing deeper crisis

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?