Satpol PP detains couple who forced other people's children to become street buskers in North Jakarta

The Public Order Agency (Satpol PP) of Sungai Bambu Urban Village, Tanjung Priok, North Jakarta, has detained a married couple with the initials H (55) and JL (27) who are suspected of forcing other people’s children to become street buskers and scavengers.

“There are two children who were made into street buskers and scavengers. One is 8 years old and the other is 9 years old,” said Asmawi, Head of Satpol PP for Sungai Bambu Urban Village, in Jakarta on Friday.

He said the two children were not the biological children of the married couple and that the children were forced to become street buskers and scavengers.

“Both perpetrators have been taken to the Cipayung social home for rehabilitation,” he said.

Meanwhile, the two children have been returned to their biological mother, Mardiah, a resident of Tanjung Priok Urban Village, in good health.

He said that to prevent trauma and the recurrence of exploitation, the two children will be given protection and also enrolled in school.

“The North Jakarta PPAPP Sub-agency will later enrol the two children in school,” he said.

He said the exploitation of the minors came to light after the children’s biological mother reported the matter to the North Jakarta PPAPP Sub-agency.

“So initially, Mrs Mardiah reported to the North Jakarta PPAPP Sub-agency that her children were being exploited by her own younger sibling and sibling-in-law and were being made into scavengers and street buskers,” he explained.

The report reached the Head of North Jakarta Satpol PP, Budhy Novian, who instructed his team to follow up because the victims’ location was in the Sungai Bambu Urban Village area.

According to him, the children’s biological mother works every day to earn a living and her husband is a fisherman who rarely comes home, so the children had no one to look after them.

The children were eventually taken in by the perpetrators, partly because the couple did not yet have children of their own.

“This situation has been going on for quite a long time. The children rarely returned home. The mother searched for them, but was afraid the perpetrators would harm her children, which is why she only now dared to report the matter to PPAPP,” he said.