Those Children, Who Is Looking After Them?

It was netizens who exposed the violence at Little Aresha daycare, not the education department. Not the government inspector. Not the KPAI. A student’s guardian family uploaded their testimony to social media. Videos and photos circulated.

Within hours, the daycare’s Google Maps rating plummeted and was ultimately removed. Netizens flooded the review column with anger. The Yogyakarta Police only moved after that.

The daycare was sealed on 24 April 2026. This fact hides no small irony. A country with six child protection regulations apparently needs Google’s algorithm to detect violence happening right under its nose.

I want to pose one simple question. Who, really, is looking after our children?

This question is not merely rhetorical. It touches on a structural issue rarely discussed when daycare abuse cases arise.

But we rarely ask why daycares have become an unavoidable need for millions of Indonesian families, and why the state allows that need to be met by the market without oversight.

Indonesian women’s participation in the workforce stands at 54 percent according to the ILO.

That figure continues to be pushed higher by the government, in line with the G20 commitment to increase women’s participation to 58 percent.

The World Bank in its 2022 report stated that increasing childcare investment to 0.5 percent of GDP could boost economic growth by 0.69 percent.

The IFC reported in July 2025 that half of working parents in Indonesia admitted that child-rearing responsibilities affect their performance, causing an average loss of four workdays per employee per year, equivalent to 1.7 percent of total company salary costs.

These figures form an impossible equation. The economy demands both parents work. The state pushes women into the workforce. But quality childcare infrastructure is almost non-existent.

The extended family that once served as a safety net has been eroded by urbanisation and nuclearisation of the family. Thus, daycares become the answer.

And when the state does not provide decent public daycares, the market fills the void.

Anyone can open a daycare. With minimal capital. With minimal caregivers. With almost zero oversight.

That growth is driven by urbanisation, increasing dual-income families, and the collapse of traditional communal childcare systems.

In villages, children were once cared for by extended family and neighbour networks. In cities, that network does not exist.

Young parents who migrate to Jakarta, Surabaya, or Yogyakarta do not have grandmothers or aunts they can ask for help. Thus, daycares become the only option.

But market growth does not automatically mean quality growth. Quite the opposite.

When daycares grow as businesses without supervised quality standards, they become spaces where child abuse can occur undetected for months. Or years.

There is a gender dimension to this case that is rarely raised. Who works in daycares? Almost entirely women. Young women, often high school or vocational graduates, without special child-rearing training, paid wages that are even often below the minimum wage.