Street children face exploitation in Surabaya

By Gin Kurniawan

SURABAYA (JP): As night arrives, Kembang Kuning graveyard comes alive. This is the place where many men satisfy their sexual drives. In fact, at night, the graveyard becomes a meat market.

Hundreds of sex workers, including transvestites and some children, work in this 4-hectare Chinese graveyard, charging customers between Rp 3,000 and Rp 10,000. Dozens of child beggars, street singers and cigarette vendors also scramble to make a living in the graveyard.

On this particular night, several boys were seen sitting in a dark corner near a tomb. From a distance, a light was seen for some seconds, then it went dark again. This was repeated several times. Once in a while the boys laughed. They were playing the so-called "Matches Sex" game.

The boys surrounded a girl, call her Yeyen, 11, who sat on the tomb. She was the object in this game. As one of the boys lit a match, she had to pull up her skirt to allow the boys to look at her.

Yeyen receives Rp 500 every time the match is lit. That is the current price, which has increased from Rp 100 before the crisis. But Yeyen does not get to keep all of the money because she has to give about half of her earnings to a hoodlum.

What happens to Yeyen is one of many examples of the exploitation of street children in Surabaya. They are abused by adults who make money from them. Many of the children are forced to enter prostitution.

Yeyen, who also has been forced into prostitution, is known as the Queen of the Matches Sex game in Kembang Kuning graveyard. The term Matches Sex is not only popular in the graveyard, but also in other places in Surabaya, including the red-light districts near the Bungurasih and Joyoboyo bus terminals and the Wonokromo and Gubeng train stations. Similar exploitation reportedly also takes place in Yogyakarta and it is possible that it happens in other big cities as well.

Exploitation of street children in Surabaya has reached an alarming level and it is likely that there are syndicates behind the abuse. These syndicates reportedly not only involve hoodlums, but also employees of the city security and order office.

"They make street children milch cows and treat them like slaves," Bagong Suyanto, chairman of the Institution for the Protection of Children in East Java, said.

According to Bagong, street children seem to "live in a jungle" where those who are strong overpower the weak. Street children are the weak, therefore they become the targets of those who are physically strong or those who have power. And those who have power are hoodlums and employees of the security and order office.

The street children have to give money to the hoodlums who run the streets where they struggle to make money.

"If we want to be safe, we have to give them money every day," Amir, 17, a vendor at Joyoboyo bus terminal, said.

There are also some employees of the security and order office who launch raids against street children. It seems, however, that the raids are only a cover to extort money from the children.

"As long as we give them money, we are free to sell our goods," Amir said.

Nanang, a street singer who works in Bungurasih terminal, said that once he was assaulted because he refused to give money to a hoodlum.

"We have to obey them, otherwise things would become really bad," Nanang said.

Bagong, who is also a social researcher at Airlangga University, said street children are an easy target for extortion because the children themselves make quite good money. Joint research conducted by Atma Jaya University in Jakarta and the East Java Institute for the Protection of Children showed that the children earn an average of between Rp 15,000 and Rp 30,000 a day.

There are about 5,000 street children in Surabaya, an increase from about 2,000 children before the economic crisis. Most of them work as street singers, hawkers and beggars.

"Just imagine how much the hoodlums make if the children have to give them half of their earnings," Bagong said.