Seto: Children's rights should start at home

By Maria Endah Hulupi

JAKARTA (JP): A passionate educator and children's advocate, Seto Mulyadi is actively involved in working with traumatized children in strife-torn areas and in promoting children's rights across the country.

Seto, the chairman of the National Commission on Children's Rights, said efforts to rehabilitate traumatized children in troubled areas was vital to preventing the loss of an entire generation to hatred and vindictiveness.

"It's not an easy task because children in these areas have been living in fear, have witnessed human rights abuses and have experienced years of hardship. We want to reintroduce a playful childhood to these traumatized children," Seto explained.

Children living in areas that have been torn apart by violence have been deprived of their childhoods, resulting in absent- minded, frightened, silent and lifeless children, he said.

Of the 1.3 million refugees in the country, Seto's commission estimates 50 percent of them are children.

The commission has established children's trauma centers in Aceh, Maluku, West Kalimantan and the former province of East Timor.

Seto said the activists and volunteers at the centers provided educational activities, health services and a playful environment to encourage the children to emerge from their shells.

"Playing is the most effective therapy for children," he pointed out.

Despite financial challenges, the centers also provide training for local people and refugees so they can assist them in their efforts to help the children.

Because the welfare of children, particularly those children in troubled areas, is so important to Seto, he has little time for the past governments he says ignored the matter because they were too busy with politics.

"The government should learn from East Timor. The East Timorese were exposed to years of human rights abuses and when they were given the opportunity for a referendum, they voted for independence."

The commission, Seto said, would highlight these deplorable conditions in its report on the implementation of the UN Convention on Children's Rights at the upcoming UN General Assembly's Special Session on Children scheduled for Sept. 17 in New York.

The psychologist has been an advocate for children since he lost his younger brother, Arief Budiman. "When I was four and my brother was three, we suffered from malaria. I was able to overcome the disease but Arief passed away."

After his brother's death, Seto dealt with his grief by entertaining children in his neighborhood by reading them stories and performing magic shows.

In 1970, he began to write articles on children's issues for Surabaya-based magazine Bahagia, using Kak (from an abbreviation for older brother) Seto, the name he would eventually become identified with, for the first time.

After failing to gain entrance to the School of Medicine at the state-run Airlangga University, Seto traveled to Jakarta, where he learned more about educating children under the tutelage of Pak Kasur.

Seto then established an education foundation for children, Yayasan Mutiara Indonesia. The foundation, through its children's arts center, has put on operettas and other televised children's shows, as well as holding activities for children in violence- torn areas.

"Programs to restore children's rights should not just be focused on traumatized children in trouble areas but nationwide," he said, pointing to the homeless children, abused children, child prostitutes and those who are forced to work in violation of child labor laws around the country.

Seto also said efforts to improve children's rights and protect them from physical, emotional, social and sexual violence should begin in the home.

"Even the authorities who often voice concern about child abuse violate children's rights in their own homes," he said, citing the data from the commission that showed 75 percent of Indonesian children were abused physically and psychologically at home.

He said the violations varied from minor mistreatment like pinching to abuses such as burning children with cigarettes and verbal belittlement.

While stressing that children were the responsibility of their parents, Seto said parents could better and more effectively educate their children with love and tenderness.

"There is no reason that can be used to justify violence against children, not even poverty," he said.

As for people he looks up to, Seto said he admired Pak Kasur for his creativity, respect and patience when dealing with children, and his mother, whose gentle approach, understanding and openness succeeded in softening even a rambunctious child like himself.

"I have adopted their approaches to educate my children and other Indonesian children," he said.