UPC calls for free ID cards

JAKARTA: The Urban Poor Consortium (UPC), a non-governmental organization struggling for the rights of the disadvantaged, has solicited the City Council's support for the provision of free identity cards to the poor.

"As of today, poor residents who find it difficult to obtain Jakarta ID cards are sitting ducks for the administration's population control raids," UPC coordinator Edi Saidi said during a hearing with the council's legal and administrative affairs commission on Friday.

The population control raids are launched regularly by the city against the mostly unskilled migrants who flock to Jakarta from the provinces.

The capital is a magnet for migrants with more than 70 percent of the money circulating in the country doing so in the capital. Every year, between 200,000 and 250,000 new migrants come to the city to seek work.

Urban activists have repeatedly criticized the administration's population raids, saying that they contravened the constitutionally right of people to improve their circumstances.

Commission chairman Achmad Suaedy promised that the council would seek clarification from the head of the Jakarta Population Agency, Abdul Kadir, about the procedures for obtaining ID cards. --JP.