The Fate of the Urban Poor - Who Cares?

Bill Guerin*

Pramoedya Ananta Toer, the Indonesian author exiled on Buru Island by
Soeharto, neatly encapsulated the lot of those without money who
inhabit the capital city, Jakarta. In a searing collection of prose, Pramoedya dissected each single aspect of the despair and forced choices of these souls who had been drawn to the capital by the magnet of Soeharto's successful development of the country and the capital. Skyscrapers, cars, electricity, and the sustenance level in their own kampungs - all combined to fire up an annual migration that continues to this day.

Once here, driven by hunger, they faced the choices. Selling
themselves, resorting to crime or resigning themselves to their fate. This latter is the theme of "My Kampung" which describes how the poor viewed life in Jakarta. Death itself would be a relief from the desperation of sheer poverty. In his story, Djibril, the archangel Gabriel, regularly came to the kampung (village) to take one inhabitant after another and deliver them to final salvation. The messenger of death brought relief at last.

Pramoedya was describing life in the early 1950's, but more than four
decades later the lot of those who stubbornly remain in Jakarta is even
more horrendous. The Jakarta of today, if anything, holds even more horrors. Prostitution, petty and more serious crime, suicides, hoodlums (preman) andworse, are all the social consequences of poverty.

Coordinator of the Urban Poor Consortium (UPC) Wardah Hafid defines
povertyfrom two perspectives: economic and social. Economically, she says, peopleare regarded as poor if the earnings of a family comprising three to five members were less than Rp 35,000 per week or Rp 150,000 per month. Socially, the poor are families that work in the informal sector, such as pedicab drivers, street vendors or casual laborers. These are the dispossessed of Jakarta, with no rights over land and usually clustered along riverbanks or near railway lines.

Non-permanent houses made of bamboo or plywood, no chairs, tables, beds Or cupboards. Shabby clothes strung out on string washing lines. These Cage like structures fronting on to a filthy, stagnant stream are the norm rather than the exception. A large majority of these shanty towns are beside railway tracks and PT KAI, the state railway company, charges Rp 5,000 per month to those using the land. Those who cannot even afford this level of shelter live under bridges and in parks. The predominant unhygienic conditions expose families, especially children, to diseases like diarrhea and respiratory infections.

As these urban poor are not Jakarta residents, they have little chance of receiving even primary health care at the local health care community centers (Puskesmas). Hospitals? Without money, there is no little chance of being admitted to a hospital in Jakarta, no matter what condition you are in.

Does globalization offer a hope for the poor?

For many of those who are fortunate enough to get a job there are other horrors to face.

BJ Habibie, Suharto's handpicked successor but having much more heart and humanity, released the Indonesian women's labor rights activist Dita Indah Sari, who rejected this year's 2002 Reebok Human Rights Award

Let out in 1999, Dita is the main labor rights campaigner and unionist within the left-wing People's Democratic Party (PRD), but also the founderof the National Front for Indonesian Workers' Struggle (FNPBI).

She hardly had time to adjust to a much-changed outside world when she started her campaign of rallies aimed at getting her fellow low-income workers a better deal. She is now also successfully building a union of workers in plants across Java.

Of the five Reebok companies in Indonesia, some 80% of the workers are women. South Korean companies send down aggressive and crass factory managers who not only ignore the pleas for better conditions but also intimidate workers, sometimes with the help of the local police or military Reebok factories in Indonesia pay only the absolute minimum government minimum wage, equivalent to less than $2 a day, to make a pair of sneakers which will go for $70 or more

Levi Strauss has also felt the sharp end of passion from Indonesian labor activists. A decade ago, when labor advocates were intimidated into silence by the regime, they tried to get Teten Masduki, who now runs the Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW) to act as middleman for a workers clinic close to one of their sub contractor's factories.

Teten resisted the temptation to become a hero, with little danger attached, and refused, explaining politely that the Indonesian workers need bargaining power, and a voice, more than medical facilities.

Dita said in Jakarta that the much-vaunted globalization brings neither universal welfare nor global peace but has, instead, divided the world into two sides, which are antagonistic towards each other. She says globalization intensifies the growing gap between the rich and the poor.

The upshot is that few really care about the gross human rights perpetrated by US multi nationals not only in Indonesia, but also in Mexico, Vietnam, China and others The Indonesian government does little, if anything, to improve the rights of those who work for less than a pittance, preferring, instead, to support businesses that profit from the slave labor.

No, the shame of the Reeboks of the great new era, is the shame of all the governments who have talked up the advantages (to them) of a big global happy family, whilst having never visited those at the bottom of the global family tree

Where does all this leave the poor?

More than 42 million Indonesians are extremely poor but wholesale poverty alleviation programs only sustain the predicament, says social welfare expert Bambang Shergi Laksmono at the University of Indonesia's School of Social and Political Sciences. Bambang argues that a rethinking of poverty alleviation strategies is needed. Does he mean by Indonesia itself or by the lending agencies?

Indonesia's spending this year on foreign debt servicing is six times more
than the combined spending on education, social and health care needs,
all of which are prime targets for the poor.

Take health. According to the United Nation Children's Fund (Unicef), 32
million of Indonesia's 210 million people are currently living below the
poverty line. The official statistics may only be the thin edge of the wedge. In a country notoriously weak on empirical data this year's national census, the 2001 National Social and Economic Survey (Susenas), is an example of sheer futility. the sample size for the obligatory questionnaire was reduced to 65,000 households.

This not only implies that the numbers of families below the sustenance level could be far, far more than statistics suggest, but again highlights why any Government programs to alleviate poverty are largely ineffective.

The predominant unhygienic conditions associated with poverty expose families, especially children, to diseases like diarrhea and respiratory infections. Worse still, Indonesia remains in third position in the world rankings of countries with the highest number of new cases of TB, after India and China. The World Health Organization (WHO) has no doubt where the blame lies.

"Tuberculosis is deeply rooted in populations where human rights and
dignity are limited. While anyone can contract TB, the disease thrives on the most vulnerable -- the marginalized, discriminated against populations, and people living in poverty." According to a report they issued this year. Of course, TB thrives among the most vulnerable sections of society. It strikes down the poor, women, children, refugees, prisoners, drug users and people with AIDS.

Malnutrition, crowding, and poor sanitation all increase the chances of infection with TB. The increasing number of refugee camps housing victims of the ethnic violence across the archipelago could well be a hot bed for contracting TB.

The irony is that in spite of the rampant corruption in the two decades before the economic crisis, Indonesia tremendous gains in child survival rates and development. The under five mortality rate dropped and polio was eradicated.

Friend of the Earth International plans to launch an Asian People's Ecological Debt Creditors Alliance in Bali during the current fourth preparatory committee meeting for the World Summit on Sustainable Development.

The idea is that ecological debts of northern developed countries have been mounting since the Rio declaration in 1992 and that the overuse and over consumption of natural resources on the part of developed countries has caused harm and poverty to third world countries.

The campaign aims to establish international recognition of ecological debt that, if it ever succeeded, would mean Indonesia would be one of the biggest beneficiaries.

Whether one single cent of such a windfall would go towards helping the poor is another question altogether.

Bill Guerin*
The Jakarta Eye
www.jakartaeye.com

Bill files weekly as the Indonesian Correspondent for the Asia Times Online, www.atimes.com - rotating between politics and the economy - and has for the last two years been the Editor of both the Mandiri English Language News Center and the online Indonesian Observer - www.indonesian-observer.com (closed down on 2 April 2002). He is also an accredited journalist with www.correspondent.com and has filed copy for the BBC in London.

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Last updated 5/28/02