Indonesian media outlets are weeping over this heartbreaking image of a single father bakso seller forced to take his 2-year-old to work

Life is certainly tough in Indonesia, and that’s particularly true for those on the less fortunate side of the country’s vast wealth gap.

Those who work in the informal sector, like street hawkers, must sacrifice long hours and put in enormous effort every day just to be able to make ends meet. One hawker selling bakso (meatballs) has become a snapshot of just how cruel and desperate life as a street hawker in Indonesia can be.

Major Indonesian media outlets like KapanLagi, Brilio, and Tribun recently reported on a story that initially went viral on Facebook a couple of days ago. The Facebook post tells the story of a bakso seller in Pasuruan, East Java, who was forced to take his two-year-old child to work with him after his wife left them.

One photo that’s really tugging at the heartstrings is of the father sleeping on the floor of a mosque with his child sleeping next to him, covered with what appears to be a single piece of thin cloth for a blanket.

Another photo shows the seller’s customized motorcycle, which carries a bakso cart attached to the back, being parked outside the mosque. A small jacket hangs on the motorcycle’s handle, presumably worn by the infant when they’re on the move so that he’s protected from the wind.

The original poster, Egha Abdi, wrote that the bakso seller often drives around Karangketug street in Pasuruan, and implored those in the city to buy his bakso for the sake of his child.

Egha also told Brilio that the bakso seller’s name is Heri and that he’s originally from the nearby city of Malang. According to Egha, Heri and his child live in a rented room in Pasuruan.

Indonesia is experiencing a middle class boom due to its steady economic growth over the past few years. But the fact remains that the poverty rate is still alarmingly high – the Indonesian Statistics Agency (BPS) had the number of Indonesians living below the poverty line (currently set at a monthly income of US$ 24.8) at 28.5 million in 2015, or 11.3% of the total population.

While the bakso seller’s baby may still be relatively lucky, in that he has his father caring for him, he may be part of another worrying statistic. According to a Unicef study in 2012, 44.3 million children in Indonesia (out of 81.3 million) live on less than US$ 2 per day, which further complicates other aspects of their lives such as access to education or even having a place to live.

We can only hope, like many others who have expressed their sympathies for the bakso seller and his infant, that they’ll find their feet amid the hardships and that the child can have a bright future. The government, while having already introduced successful programs such as the eradication of street children through rehabilitation (reducing the number of street children from 232,894 in 2006 to 33,400 in 2015, with the aim of reaching zero this year), must keep working hard to tackle poverty and ensure that no child is neglected in Indonesia.