Shelters for the poor, destitute not effective, say officials

JAKARTA (JP): Article 34 of the 1945 Constitution stipulates, "The poor, and destitute children shall be cared for by the State."

The question is, in reality, what institution holds the responsibility and how should it be carried out?

"Our failure is that these responsibilities have never been carried out properly," education expert Arief Rahman told a discussion here on Wednesday.

As a result, he said, there have never been clear programs on how to take care of poor people and destitute children.

"The same thing occurs when dealing with street children. There are shelters and programs. But they are hardly effective," Arief said.

Arief mentioned that shelters for street children are spread all over the capital.

Data provided by the city's Social Handicap Rehabilitation Office shows that there are 96 shelters located in the city, which accommodate 9,410 street children.

The city administration runs 70 of them, while the rest are funded and managed by foreign institutions.

According to head of the city Social Handicap Rehabilitation Office Waluyo, the shelters provide food, a place to stay, education and training.

However, many criticize such shelters for only providing food and a place to stay.

Anthropologist Atashendartini Habsjah from Atmajaya University said that she even doubted there were as many as 96 shelters in the city.

"Most of the shelters are a nonsense. We found that many of them were without a supervisor or any programs at all," she asserted.

According to Arief, shelters are only for temporary relief and are not effective in the long term.

"We have to create a system to take care of these poor children," he said.

The important thing is, he added, that street children hate routine.

"So, the program should not try to enforce routine. First, just give them basic education and lessons about hygiene," Arief said.

Atashendartini said that there should be an institution to protect children.

"Every street child must be accommodated. Not like at present, where they are arrested on the streets, placed in shelters and then categorized. But in the end, they keep going back to the streets," she said.

Meanwhile, Ministry of National Education Director General of Elementary and Secondary Education Indra Djati Sidi said that the problem in providing education for street children is not about money.

"Funds have always been provided, but the mechanisms to channel them and for target identification are still a problem," he said.

His office, he said, is proposing a grant for non-governmental organizations that will then carry out the program.

There are an estimated 50,000 individuals in the capital who are categorized as street children, based on research by Atmajaya in 1999.

They are all below 16 years of age, and earn money as candy sellers, street singers, car cleaners, shoe shiners and beggars.(hdn)