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4/7/04

“The children are our future”, the old saying goes. And the UNICEF, in its 1995 State of the World’s Children, understood this perfectly when the body stressed that “Unless the investment in children is made, all of humanity's most fundamental long-term problems will remain fundamental long-term problems.”

It is rightly so. Among humanity’s basic challenges are security, prosperity and peace. Center to these three challenges is the stable and strong families. And the latter is impossible to achieve without a great deal of attention is given to the development of children. But realities often depart from the ideals. The global data of Children show a sad truth.

Of the estimated 250 million children between the ages of 5 and 14 who are economically active, some 50 million to 60 million between the ages of 5 and 11 are engaged in such intolerable forms of labor. Each year, about one million children enter the sex trade, exploited by people or circumstances.  And in 1999, the United Nations estimate that there were 20 million bonded laborers world-wide, including children.

But the distressing pictures are not also far from home. In fact, they are right at the heart of our nation. The nation’s children problems are ranging from child labor, child prostitution, child trafficking, child crimes and juveniles, and street children.

According the ILO’s estimates, there were between 6 to 8 million children worked in 2001. And World Vision, an international NGO, estimated that there were 6.5 million children working in the country during the year. The Central Bureau of Statistics reported in 1999 that there were about 1.4 million of domestic workers in Indonesia and 23 percent of them were between 10 and 18 years old. Meanwhile the 1998 ILO’s statistical survey estimated that 5 million children in Indonesia were in domestic service.

A report by US Department of State “Trafficking in Persons Report in 2001” described Indonesia as a source country for domestic and internationally trafficked persons, primarily young women and girls. Indonesians are trafficked to Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia, Brunei, the Persian Gulf countries, Australia, Korea, and Japan; and there are reports that they are trafficked to Europe and the United States.  The victims of domestic and international trafficking are targeted for sexual exploitation and forced labor. Some observers estimate that 20% of Indonesia's 5 million migrant workers have been trafficked.

Another disturbing report from UNICEF in 2000 was the prevalence of child prostitution aged under 18 years, which was around 30% of the total sex workers in the country. This constitutes around 40,000 to over 150,000 based on different estimates of the number of sex workers. However, NGO's estimate that there are as many as 1.3 million prostitutes in the country where around 30% of them may be under 16 years of age. (US Dept of State, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2000, February 2001).

In Human Development Report 1999, UNDP reported that around 31% of total prisoners in Indonesia were juveniles. And according to a recent study, there are about 170,000 street children in 12 urban areas. Of these, about 20% are girls and at least 60% of them were not enrolled in school. (US Dept of State, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2000, February 2001)

The downturn in the economy during the last six years, the high cost of living, burgeoning AIDS and crime problems extend the very real possibility that these statistics have taken an upward trend and practices recorded as a “problem” could have in fact worsened in the last three years. In other words, problems may appear much worse than the data presented.

If we are to solve our nation’s basic challenges, the welfare of the children must be one of the national top priorities. Let us focus on one of the most disturbing problems: child labor.

UNICEF defined child labor as one that involves: Full-time work at too early an age; Too many hours spent working; Work that exerts undue physical, social, or psychological stress; Work and life on the streets in bad conditions; Inadequate pay; Too much responsibility; Work that hampers access to education; Work that undermines children’s dignity and self-esteem, such as slavery or bonded labor and sexual exploitation; Work that is detrimental to social and psychological development.

Article 32 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1989 and ratified by 187 countries, was set up to protect children worldwide from exploitation. It says, “States Parties recognize the right of the child to be protected from economic exploitation and from performing any work that is likely to be hazardous or to interfere with the child’s education, or to be harmful to the child’s health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development.”

But just like other UN Convention, practices and written general consensus are often two different things. Both the global and domestic data are stubborn proofs.

Child labor is a very complex problem. Some children can and will starve if they do not work. Poverty is one of the greatest factors leading to child exploitation. Families cannot afford to send their children to school, thus the poverty cycle will continue until other options are made available for third-world countries. Diminishing poverty and increasing the quality of education are the most important means by which to end child labor.

While there is no simple solution - signing conventions and drafting legislation have not eliminated child labor - education is perhaps the key to freeing children from this stranglehold. But this education must be effective, affordable, of high quality and should also offer a vocational component. During the Suharto regime, the elementary and junior secondary educations were generally affordable to middle and low income households. Today, the cost of elementary education is hardly affordable for middle income families. In Jakarta itself, the cost of primary education for one student, as many have told me, is ranging from 100 – 200 thousands per month which is equivalent to about 10-20% low income households.

On a broader scale, civil society and companies should accept the challenge to join the war against child labor. Some of the many ways in which they can contribute are by enforcing employment age limits, making tangible donations to schools and libraries, and offering scholarships or assistance to poor families. If the society does not participate, who else? To expect that the government alone can overcome this problem is unreasonable.

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