Indonesian Children Now Dig Through Trash

by Andreas Harsono

"Apparently they're siblings. I have never seen them before but they were looking for used bottles, cardboard boxes and other things that can still be sold," says Oh, whose house is located in the middle-class Puspita Loka housing area in southwestern Jakarta.

After two months, that sight has now become familiar to the neighborhood. More than two dozen children roam the area every morning, in the afternoon and even at night in an desperate effort to find garbage to be recycled or to be sold.

"Sometimes they wait in the distance [before approaching private trash cans]. I'm really sorry for the children. It must be very difficult," says the father of one son, adding that most of the children live in a poorer area of the same neighborhood and apparently have to do this work to help their parents.

According to the International Labor Organization, an average of almost 15,000 workers will lose their jobs every day this year and two out of three Indonesians are likely to be living below the poverty line next year.

That report concurs with earlier findings from Indonesia's Central Bureau of Statistics, which said in July that the number of Indonesians living below the poverty line had soared to 79.4 million, or about 40 percent of the country's population of 202 million.

Although the two organizations did not mention children, obviously Indonesian children are also affected; they suffer immediately from the ongoing regional currency and economic crisis as do the children who quietly roam the Puspita Loka neighborhood.

Ironically, it was just a year and a half ago when international labor organizations, the world press and foreign governments condemned the practice of allowing such children to work in factories. Until an infrastructure that supports their needs can be built here -- and that could take years -- children who once worked for low wages making soccer balls and tennis shoes to help their families may be forced by economic necessity to dig through garbage for recyclables. But some progress is being made.

Indonesian Minister of Education and Culture Juwono Sudarsono estimated in June that 20 percent of all school pupils in the country had stopped attending school since July of last year.

In an attempt to stop the slide, his office has decided to scrap tuition fees, introduce scholarships for primary school children, and provide free books.

"I want to prevent a lost generation of young Indonesians. They could be deprived of their opportunity to get ahead through education," Sudarsono says, adding that the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank have agreed to help.

The result is a scholarship and school aid program, funded by both banks at a cost of $390 million, that is supposed to assist an estimated 25 million Indonesian schoolchildren over the next five years.

"The World Bank and ADB loans provide us with a rescue program which will decrease the number of dropouts substantially, although it certainly won't solve the problem," Sudarsono says.

Sudarsono is right. Many parents still prefer to ask their children to work to make ends met. Children in the rural areas work in the fields while those in the cities have to become street vendors, beggars, street singers or garbage hunters. Orphans are among the least fortunate, as orphanages have suddenly witnessed extreme decreases in donations.

Jobless and poor parents argued that they actually have no choice. Others argued that the kids are going to be absent from school only temporarily, one year or two, while waiting for the economy to become better.

One of Indonesia's most popular actors, Rano Karno, and members of his "family" in their television and film series were recruited to publicize the government's campaign against dropping out. Their messages have been appearing regularly on television and radio.

"We all know that it is a very difficult time. But don't give up. Keep our kids at school," Karno says in the ad.

Asmarijan, a widow who lives several kilometers away from the Puspita Loka neighborhood, says that she wants to keep her youngest son in school even though she considers the monthly school fee, which is 16,000 rupiah, or around $1.20, quite burdensome -- it can represent as much as two days' wages here. Like many Indonesians, she uses just one name.

"I do everything, from washing clothes to cleaning houses, just to keep my son in school," says the 40-year-old Asmarijan, who lost her job as a gardener in January but was able to switch directly to a job as a housemaid.

Meanwhile, the 34-year-old Oh could only took a deep breath when talking about the children and the nation's gloomy economic forecasts. He had to closed his tile distribution in February and became jobless. "It's a very difficult time here," he whispered.