Poverty 'main cause' of trafficking

from The Jakarta Post

While poverty remains the leading cause of child trafficking in Indonesia, the attitudes of parents and a wide-scale lack of education in certain areas of the country also contribute, officials told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

Budhy Prabowo, a child protection official at the State Ministry for Women's Empowerment, said several areas in the country were known as child trafficking "sources", including Indramayu and Karawang in West Java and Blitar and Banyuwangi in East Java.

"However, since the 1997 monetary crisis, all regions of the country have become susceptible to child trafficking," he said.

Emmy LS from the National Presidium of Indonesia Against Child Trafficking said 70 percent of East Java's 38 regencies were regularly the source of children for labor or prostitution.

"Poverty is exacerbated by other factors, such as the attitudes of parents, a lack of birth certificates and a lack of education," she said.

"The most significant additional factor causing child trafficking is the consumerism of parents," she added.

Budhy said parents themselves often sold their children for money.

"Many children coming from poor villages are told to become beggars or street musicians," he said.

Emmy said some parents only saw their children as "investments" that could bring in easy money.

"The ball is actually in the parents' court. Some low-income parents protect their children no matter what, but other parents decide to sell their children," said Emmy.

She said a common way to sell children was by falsifying their identity cards.

"So parents may write that their child is 19 years old when in reality they are only 16 years old," Emmy said.

Budhy said issuing birth certificates would prove the ages of children so that irresponsible parents or relatives could not benefit from their powerlessness.

Children and teenagers from economically disadvantaged families often lack skills and education, making them more powerless, Emmy said.

"So all they can do is follow what their parents or relatives say to get money," she said.

Aris Merdeka Sirait, the secretary general of the National Commission for Child Protection, agreed that poverty in general remained the most prominent cause of child trafficking.

"This phenomenon can be seen in the post-Idul Fitri holiday season when many people will be trying to persuade villagers or children to come to Jakarta to make money," he said.

Data from the commission in 2006 indicates that 32 percent of Jakarta's estimated 70,000 prostitutes are underage.

Emmy said there was often a very fine line between underage girls working as housemaids and prostitutes, and that both professions generally involved abuse.

"Children working as domestic helpers are also often abused," she said, adding that sexual harassment was also common.

Emmy, who recently completed research into child trafficking in cooperation with U.S.-based non-governmental organization Save the Children, urged the government to take concrete steps to solve the problem by issuing free birth certificates and providing affordable education for all children.

"We must provide children with proper education so they will have more hope of being able to earn money in their hometowns," she said.