Working minors: Unwitting heroes of the nation face life of servitude
ID Nugroho, The Jakarta Post/Surabaya
A swarm of flies settled on a heap of rotting corn abruptly rose as Siti Maesaroh (not her real name), 17, walked passed the pile of garbage on Wednesday. She held her nose with the fingers of her left hand to keep out the stench, while she shooed away the flies with her right hand.
Not far from the pile of garbage is the house in which she, her parents and her 11 siblings live. It is located on a narrow alley off Jl. Genting in Surabaya.
The house is just a three meter by six meter structure partitioned into three sections; the guest room, bedroom and kitchen. A small bathroom is located beside the house.
In her family, Siti is a "hero" as, despite her young age, she contributes financially.
Equipped with just an elementary school certificate, Siti, who is fluent in reciting the Koran, works as a laborer in a timber processing factory north of Surabaya.
She is paid Rp 20,000 (US$2.00) per day, or Rp 600,000 per month. "It's a tidy sum to help make ends meet," she says.
The family considers the wage that Siti receives to be pretty fair as her father, a porter at the Genting market, earns much less than she gets, as does her mother, who sells fritters.
Even with all their earnings combined, however, they are barely enough to support a family of 12 children. They have to pay Rp 100,000 for electricity and water, and Rp 500,000 on food each month. "Not including our other expenses. It's barely enough," said Siti. Due to the problems facing the family, Siti and her 11 siblings had to leave school.
Siti is just one of a multitude of child workers. She and other thousands of child workers in the country should be praised as heroes by the nation as the country celebrates Heroes Day on Nov. 10.
A sociologist at Airlangga University in Surabaya, Bagong Suyanto, said that there were a great number of children in East Java who shared Siti's fate, particularly following the increase in fuel prices. "My analysis indicates that the poverty rate in East Java is on an upward trend," he told The Jakarta Post.
Economic hardship resulting from the fuel price hike would force families to maximize their earning capacities by forcing children and mothers to work, especially when the fathers lost their jobs, as was likely to happen to many following the fuel price increases. "There's no other way but to require children and wives to work to help make ends meet," he said.
Figures from the East Java Manpower Office show that there were 16.5 million people in the workforce in East Java in 2002. Around 1 million people are unemployed, and the school dropout figures reached 9,000 students in 2002. "The figures will keep rising," said Bagong.
Djunaidi Saripurnawan, the research and development coordinator of PLAN Indonesia in Surabaya, views child labor as a chronic problem. "Parents habitually allow their children to work without being aware that they are violating their rights," Djunaidi explained to the Post.
Djunaidi suggested that efforts to eradicate child labor would need to be accompanied by measures to improve the economic circumstances of families. "If a family is financially sound, the basic rights of family members can be realized, including the children's rights," he said.