To seek a home

The damage that humans can do to one another is no match for Mother Nature -- as everyone can see along Asia's shorelines. A third of the 150,000 people killed across the region in the earthquake and tsunamis were children.

In the worst hit areas in Aceh, in addition to the scores of orphans from the years of war, we now have an unknown number of children whose parents and other relatives were killed in the disaster.

With the full impact of the tragedy still to be understood, no less than the United Nations has warned of the possibility of these orphaned children being trafficked.

The warning came days after President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono urged officials to help the people of Aceh by taking in their orphans. The President's men almost instantly backtracked for fear of sinister actors seeking profitable engagement amid the surge of hopeful adoptive parents.

The government has now issued a temporary ban on adopting children from affected areas. The UN Children's Fund (Unicef) has also said that each orphaned child will be registered as part of the effort to prevent the exploitation of the "tsunami generation".

The trafficking of children, the UN says, is not uncommon in crisis situations, whether in armed conflicts or in the aftermath of natural disasters. In the case of the thousands of Asia's new orphans, the dilemma lies in the lengthy process of determining whether a child has surviving relatives -- as officials here have argued when calling for a temporarily ban to adoptions -- and the obvious need for the child to be restored to a family-like environment as soon as possible.

The exploitation of children is only one aspect of concern regarding the young survivors of the tsunami. After having being saved, some miraculously, from the giant waves, it is now up to adults to see to the children's welfare amid destroyed infrastructure and a shortage of all supplies.

While we welcome the government's decision to halt adoptions for the time being given the concern over child trafficking, we urge it to speed up the process of returning these children to family surroundings, whether in Aceh or elsewhere. It is certainly the duty of the state to care for all orphans and to ensure they receive a proper upbringing.

The rush of families to adopt Aceh's orphans is another expression of solidarity on the part of people touched by the tragic stories of death and devastation. Most gestures are genuine, including First Lady Kristiani Herawati's attempt to adopt a child she thought had been orphaned before discovering the boy had a relative who could care for him.

We respect the government's concern that these children find good homes with adoptive families that can provide them the necessary love, care and attention. But given the number of children orphaned by the disaster, there is also a case for speeding up the adoption process. Preference indeed must be given to surviving relatives who can take care of these children, but if there are no relatives the children should be put up for adoption as quickly as safely possible.

In this light, the public needs to know as soon as possible the details of the government's policy regarding this issue, apart from the fact that adoption is allowed only when "we have determined that their parents and other immediate relatives died in the tsunami".

At this moment, the Indonesian government has the benefit of numerous parties ready to cooperate on this issue, such as Unicef and other organizations who have experience in caring for children caught up in crises. We need all the help we can get; given our flimsy law enforcement and the scope of this tragedy, the fears raised by Unicef leader Carol Bellamy of exploition of the young survivors are also ours.