Background of Poverty and
the Street Children in Indonesia
Indonesia has 144,889 street children and every year the number increases significantly. The problems experienced by street children include homelessness, exploitation, and the worst forms of labor, abuse, health difficulties, coercion and control by adult gangs, conflict with the law, lack of education, and lack of identification papers. Why is there this problem in Indonesia? It is strongly depending on the country’s economic conditions.
Indonesia legally became an independent country in 1949 from the Netherlands. The leader of independent movement, Akhmed Sukarno, became the First President of the Republic of Indonesia. Even though their independent was successful, by the time Sukarno became the lifetime President in 1963, the economy was almost crushed due to Netherlands boycott against the exporting, stagnation of production, and increase of inflation. Sukarno transferred his presidency to Suharto in 1966.
The percentage of absolute poverty in the country was around 60% in 1970. The economy recovers when the First Oil Shock hit the world in 1973; Indonesia’s income from the oil suddenly increases abruptly. Followed by the second oil shock in 1979, the percentage of absolute poverty decreased to 50% during 1976 – 1984. However, world economy is stagnated because of two oil shocks, and Indonesia’s economy goes down as well in 1980. Also, the price of oil dropped dramatically in 1986, leading Indonesian economy downwards as well. Indonesia once had bubble with financial labialization in 1988, but this led only the Chinese and the members of President Family to become wealthy; and because most of the companies invested in the capital city Jakarta, where inflation was maintained, gap between the rich and the poor, and the urban and country side became greater. However, despite of the greater gap, the economic bubble made the economy of the country much better than before; the percentage of absolute poverty decreased to 15%.
Indonesian economy recovered with the bubble, but soon again lost the way because of the Asian Economic Crisis in 1997. Indonesian Rupiah dropped its value from 2400 rupiah in August to 17000 rupiah in January, both equivalents to US$1. Suharto, who used to be supported with the improvement of economy, had to leave his seat of presidency. The Vice-President at the time Habibie became the next president, however, because of the antagonism between the government and the militarism several demos and terrorisms occurred; the inflation jumped to 77.6%, the economic growth decreased to -13.68%, and the population without jobs increased to 22%.
The issue of street children first emerged in early 1980s when less than ten NGOs were working in Indonesia. Moreover The Indonesian Government refused to acknowledge the existence of street children in Indonesia Until the late 1990s. However, looking at the history of Indonesia, it is easily seen that the street children has existed from earlier ages before 1980s. Also the country’s main children’s legislation, the 1979 Child Welfare Act is ineffective because even if the government tries to give street children some help, such as health care, health service providers do not give them priority to them since the health card they get are given to them free. NGOs (non government organizations) are calling for an urgent need for a new Child Protection Law as well as new institutional and implementation arrangements within government.
(Translation of Japanese into English is in the Solutions page)
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