The recent murder and mutilation of an 8-year-old street child, Ardiansyah, has once again starkly highlights the serious plight of street children in Indonesia. A succession of programs has been developed in response to the problems of this population.
The government, through the Social Services Ministry, has attempted to address the problems through a number of avenues.
However, the overall effort appears to be superficial at best. The number of street children continues to climb, while their situation worsens.
In spite of the failure of various programs that are uniformly developed in the form of national programs, the government seems to be reluctant to change its position and undertake alternative approaches in addressing the problem of street children.
Intervention programs for street children are still undertaken under the framework of “social rehabilitation”, giving the impression that this group is still being pathologized as a deviant population that needs to be rehabilitated, rather than as a sector of the community that needs protection and assistance. It is in the name of rehabilitation when government action takes the form of organized mass arrests and punitive legal action.
It is important to note that the common perception of street children in Indonesia as being runaways, delinquents or abandoned by their family is a fallacy. Such an interpretation does not accurately reflect the characteristics of the majority of this population.
The fact is that most street children in Indonesia, like Ardiansyah, are simply “working kids” who engage in economically productive activities in an effort to stave off poverty. For some children, their ability to work, helping their impoverished families, is part of their sense of self-worth. The discourse on economically active children is culturally acceptable in most of Indonesian society.
It is poverty that renders their parents unable to care for and supervise these children adequately. In the case of Ardiansyah, the circumstance of his impoverished family seems to have led to neglect. He was a victim of child neglect and was vulnerable to sex predators and other street dangers.
Street children, male or female, are among the most vulnerable to sexual abuse. Unfortunately, research exploring this issue has traditionally focused on the female population, neglecting the experience of male children, whose plight has largely gone unacknowledged.
In the case of child prostitution, for instance, the general assumption is that the victims are only girls.
The reality, however, demonstrates that boys are no less vulnerable than girls to sexual abuse.
Poverty is often seen as the main underlying factor that makes children in Indonesia vulnerable to sexual abuse and exploitation. However, it is important to note that there are some aspects of our culture, such as the characteristics of adult-child relationships in society, which pose serious risks for children becoming easy targets for sex predators.
It is easy for pedophiles to win the trust of parents in our society. Some parents are still unaware of the danger when a stranger tries to approach their children. Some will even feel flattered to find someone who appears to be genuinely interested in and caring of their children. They do not realize that, in the manner of a hunter, pedophiles are predators who will do anything to get their victims.
The case of Ardiansyah shows how it is not difficult for even an “amateur” predator like Baikuni, who is reported to have confessed to the crime, to easily outwit people in society. Baikuni’s profile does not fit the prototype of such global pedophile rings as Wonderland or Orchid Clubs, two of the largest worldwide Internet-based pedophile rings, originating in the United States.
Predators like Baikuni do not need Internet access or sophisticated encryption codes to disguise their crimes, as they simply live among the most vulnerable children where they can easily cultivate the victims they wishes to abuse while the people around remain ignorant.
Research on street children in Indonesia tends to romanticize the circumstances of these children and emphasize the exposure to deviations experienced by this population compared to children in general. As a result, only a few studies have focused on critiquing the policy and intervention programs for this population.
International pressure seems to have led Indonesia to adopt policies and programs on street children haphazardly in an attempt to fulfill international requirements. As a result, some of the government’s responses have been grossly ineffective and culturally insensitive.
Inconsistency in the government’s policies is another significant issue that has led to the ineffectiveness of the programs. This has resulted in a climate where intervention programs for street children, such as shelters or drop-in centers, which mushroomed in the late 1990s, in the long term are not sustainable.
Drop-in centers, characterized as semi-institutional, were initially designed only as a preliminary element of intervention programs for street children. They were developed as an emergency care unit giving priority to children who were homeless and had no significant contact with families. Some other follow-up and referral programs should have been established in an integrated approach along with the establishment of these centers.
The absence of follow-up programs has resulted in most drop-in centers focusing their efforts on delivering long-term programs while neglecting their main function of reaching out to the most vulnerable children on the streets. Most drop-in centers are also no longer characterized as semi-institutional, as children must officially register and satisfy certain conditions to be eligible for services.
Society has witnessed the shortcomings of the government and concerned ministries and departments in responding to such serious yet sensitive issues. A culture of hope is emerging from the newly installed ministry of women’s empowerment and child protection. The question now remains whether this new ministry will provide a better system for child protection in Indonesia.
The inauguration of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s second Cabinet has just taken place and its spirit still lingers, yet discussion on child protection remains muted. Politicians such as Tifatul Sembiring, who was appointed information and communications minister and who actively brought child protection issues to the media’s attention as part of his campaign during the Cabinet selection process, has not commented substantially on the matter since then. Nor have we had any significant comment on this case from Linda Gumelar, the state minister for women’s empowerment and child protection.
By : Muhrisun Afandi
Sources :
