According to government data, there are about 33,400 homeless children living on the streets in Indonesia, with about 7,600 of them living in Jakarta. It’s a huge, heartbreaking problem created by numerous systemic causes such as poverty and poor family planning policies.
Despite the magnitude of the problem, Social Affairs Minister Khofifah Indar Parawansa said she is optimistic that the whole problem of street children can be solved by the end of next year at a program titled “Declaration Towards an Indonesia Free of Street Children by 2017” at Monas yesterday.
“If we are not optimistic, we will not move forward ,” Khofifah said as quoted by Tempo.
Khofifah said the Street Kids Free Indonesia program was first started in 2015 but that this declaration event was to reiterate their goal of eliminating the problem by the end of 2017.
The declaration was read by a group of street children who promised to go to school to study and do productive activities every day. In addition, they promised to be role models to others kids to get them to join the Street Kids Free program. The event was attended by hundreds of children from various parts in Jakarta and Banten.
While any efforts to help reduce the number of vulnerable children living on the streets is admirable, declaring a completely unrealistic goal without a huge corresponding increase in the amount of resources and programs to tackle that goal is more of an exercise in PR than helping children.
This year, the social minister has been in the spotlight for suggesting the government implement gay conversion therapy and for suggesting doors be removed in dormitories to prevent students from having gay sex. If she really wants to help street children, perhaps she should re-prioritize what issues she pays attention to.
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