To seek a home

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.