WP: Asia's Children Losing to Destitution (fwd)

[Robert Weissman <rob@essential.org>]

Asia's Children Losing to Destitution
By Kevin Sullivan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, September 7, 1998
FRONT PAGE
JAKARTA, Indonesia?Second of three articles
Eleven-year-old Ipan, a cheerful little beggar in a buzz cut and a dirty T-
shirt, knocks on car windows and sings and pleads for money with his
4-year-
old sister, Tuti, holding tight to his side in her fading flowered dress.
He
bangs on his homemade tambourine -- a stick with a nail driven through a
bunch
of jangling bottle caps -- and sings to people who mainly ignore him from
behind smoked glass windows.
Ipan is part of an army of ragamuffins who fan out when the light turns red
at
the intersection between the chic Mandarin Oriental Hotel and the gleaming
Deutsche Bank tower. It is a scene repeated all over this city of 8 million
people every hour of every day. Even after midnight, children knock on car
windows; some of these children are too tiny to see over the car door.
Until two months ago, Ipan spent his days in school, learning to read and
write and count more than spare change. But his parents, who have lost
their
jobs, can no longer afford the school fees, so Ipan has joined the growing
throng of child street hustlers. Like children around Indonesia, he has
seen
his world transformed in a matter of weeks: Once on the cusp of stepping
out
of the slums, he and millions of others now face desperate lives of extreme
poverty and malnutrition.
They are the faces of an Asian generation on the verge of being lost.
Misery
is a difficult thing to measure, but Asia's economic crisis has been
cruelest
to children. Visits to dumps and slums, villages and cities, homes and
workplaces across the region in the past six months paint a bleak portrait
of
the impact of Asia's economic crisis on its youth, and therefore, on its
future.
In Indonesia, Thailand and South Korea, fast-growing economies had meant
that
millions of poor people enjoyed better living standards, cleaner and safer
places to live and work, more and better education, freedom from disease
and
longer lives. Now Asia's poor, many of whom were just taking their first
steps
out of poverty, are tumbling back into conditions they thought they had
left
behind forever.
The situation is worst in Indonesia, a vast nation that has suffered
economic
catastrophe, violent political upheaval and its most severe drought in a
century -- all at the same time. But many of the problems being seen in
Indonesia -- hunger and malnutrition, rising dropout rates, increasing
child
labor, crime and prostitution, family disintegration -- also are increasing
in
Thailand, South Korea and other Asian nations.
Malnutrition in Indonesia is rising fast as families can no longer afford
rice, sugar, flour, vegetables and cooking oil, which have doubled in
price.
Stephen J. Woodhouse, head of UNICEF's office in Indonesia, said the first
cases of marasmus, the severe emaciation seen in the worst African famines,
are beginning to show up among children in remote villages of Java, the
main
Indonesian island. Some estimate that infant mortality in Indonesia could
jump
by 30 percent, after being reduced by two-thirds in the last 25 years.
Many pregnant women can no longer afford proper prenatal care and
nutrition.
Child immunization had been nearly universal in Indonesia, but now common
vaccinations for measles, mumps, rubella and other childhood diseases are
too
costly for poor families. Contraceptives, anti-diarrhea medicines and
common
antibiotics also have become prohibitively expensive and hard to find in
many
areas. Hospitals and rural health care clinics are starting to reuse
syringes,
increasing the risk for spreading AIDS. Tuberculosis is a growing problem.
Millions of Asian children already have dropped out of school this year;
millions more are on the verge of leaving the classroom for the workplace
in
the coming months. Asia had greatly reduced child labor in the past decade,
but that progress is unraveling as young children are now working long,
hot,
dangerous hours in glass factories, garment sweat shops and cement plants.
Others are turning to street begging and prostitution. Families are
marrying
off their daughters at increasingly young ages so they have fewer mouths to
feed. And some families who believe they can no longer afford to raise
their
children are leaving them at orphanages.
"We could easily lose a whole generation of kids who are being pulled out
of
school and put to work; it's almost impossible to recover from," said Scott
Guggenheim, the World Bank's poverty coordinator for Indonesia, who just
finished a four-year stay in the country. "A whole generation of
expectations
has vanished."
South Korean President Kim Dae Jung, in a written comment for this story,
said
he feels "deep sorrow" that Asian children are suffering even more because
of
the financial crisis. "Economic progress built with the thin, weak hands of
children can never be the future of Asia," Kim said. "Forcing children to
discontinue their education and making them enter the dangerous labor
market
robs us of our future."


In Jakarta, a half-dozen small children sit before a television that
flickers
in the darkness; chickens peck in the garbage pile behind them. Eight lanes
of
traffic scream along a Jakarta street on the concrete bridge over their
heads.
But it is quiet here in the damp crawl space beneath the bridge, where nine
families live in a warren of wooden rooms they have built on the banks of
the
filthy Ciliwung River.
Most of these families pick garbage for a living. With prices rising and
people being more cautious about what they throw away, people here are
having
more and more trouble making enough money to buy food.
But now they are getting help from private social workers who bring
packages
of rice, sugar, soy sauce and soap. In the markets, they would sell for
almost
$1.50, but they are offered to these poor people for about 25 cents.
"These children are malnourished, and their brains are suffering
irreversible
damage," says Christine Burns, a volunteer who helps deliver the food. "I
feel
sorry for the Indonesian people, but now just feeling sorry is not enough."
Mariah, 40, picks up a package of food from Burns and walks back to her
dark
little room with four toddlers following her in a line like so many
ducklings.
"For people like us," she says, bouncing the small plastic bag of food on
one
knee and a skinny infant on the other, "the most important thing is our
stomachs."
Health officials say that growing malnutrition is threatening the mental
and
physical development of millions of Asian children.
In South Korea, the government has provided $8 million to feed children who
can no longer afford to take decent lunches to school. Hunger is spreading
through some areas of rural Thailand.
The Indonesian government estimates that by year's end, 100 million people,
almost half the nation's population, won't be able to afford adequate food
--
which it defines as at least 2,100 calories a day per person -- and other
basic necessities.
As malnutrition increases and prices soar, programs to provide food to
Indonesia's hungry are drawing thousands of people, so many that army
troops
carrying automatic weapons are used to keep food lines orderly.
Anemia, diarrhea and respiratory ailments are becoming more common in rural
Indonesia, especially among very young children, because of bad nutrition.
"It's extremely difficult to reverse damage done to brain growth because of
malnutrition in the first two years of life," said Woodhouse, of UNICEF.
At the same time, Indonesia's health care system is collapsing. A system of
250,000 local health and welfare centers, or posyandu, are no longer
working
well because many of the million-plus volunteers have had to go to work to
feed their own families. Larger public health clinics have doubled their
fees
recently. Middle-class people who used to visit private doctors now are
coming
to the clinics, and poor people are being forced to turn to primitive
herbal
remedies that are often useless, Woodhouse said. In some cases, one
official
said, antibiotics for respiratory ailments are being replaced by "a glass
of
water with a spell cast over it."
In Seoul, Kim Min Ah, an apple-cheeked 12-year-old with big warm eyes, hugs
her little sister close as they sit cross-legged on the shiny linoleum
floor
of the Sang Lok orphanage. They giggle at their baby brother's scratchy
little
voice as he sings a song called "Rainbow," bouncing in the lap of the
orphanage director they all call "Dad."
The children's father ran off and left them with their mother earlier this
year. But when South Korea's economic crisis hit hard, the coffee shop
where
she worked went bankrupt. Broke and desperate, she took a job at a
restaurant
far from Seoul, placing her children -- Min Ah; her sister, Min Ji, 8; and
brother Tae Jung, 6 -- indefinitely at the orphanage.
Now they sleep eight to a room with other children, including almost 20 new
faces in the past six months.. The girls' room is cheery with stuffed
animals
and flowers, and bright-colored laundry hanging on a rack. Outside,
brothers,
age 11 and 8, ride a seesaw. Their mother abandoned them when their father
lost his job. The father tried to keep and care for them, but he brought
them
here when the pressure of single parenthood and driving a taxi at night
drove
him to thoughts of suicide.
Min Ah takes care of her sweet-faced siblings: "Since I'm the big sister, I
tell my sister and brother to dress and get to school on time," she says.
She also tries to help the time pass faster: "My mother said, 'I'm coming
back
in a few years to take you out of here, so please wait.' "
"Economic orphans" are the most extreme cases, but they illustrate how
harsh
economics are breaking up families. The family has long been the backbone
of
Asian society, but it is now cracking under the financial stress. Thousands
of
kids are being sent away from their parents, brothers and sisters as they
ride
out the crisis with better-off relatives and friends -- and in the worst
cases, strangers. It hurts, but families are trying to give their children
the
best chance to thrive.
When there is no family, there are churches, mosques and the government.
South
Korea has passed a law allowing families who can no longer afford to care
for
their children to leave them at state-run orphanages, free of charge. There
are no firm statistics, but Sang Lok officials alone have received more
than
200 calls from parents looking for help. Mosques in largely Muslim
Indonesia
have been taking in increasing numbers of children.
"This economic crisis has emptied many people's pockets, and also their
hearts," said Lim Joon Kyung of the Seoul Counseling Center, which has been
swamped with requests for orphanage placements.
The entire region is facing increasing problems with abandoned children.
Saini, 15, came last month to the St. Vincentius orphanage in the village
of
Pringsewu on Sumatra, the Indonesian island just west of Jakarta. She is
the
daughter of a farmer who could no longer make ends meet for his wife and
eight
children.
The Catholic nuns who run the home say the krismon -- short for the krisis
ekonomi, as the economic crisis is called in Indonesian -- which came on
top
of the severe drought, has pressured families to do what they never thought
they could -- give up their children.
"I like it here," Saini said, smiling. But asked about her family, she
burst
instantly into big, rolling tears. It has been weeks since she has seen
them.
It takes a full day to get to her family home, and neither she nor they can
afford the bus fare anymore.
Saini apologized, wiping the tears away with the starched white sleeve of
her
school uniform. "If I remember them, I am sad."
"It's a hard decision for the parents, but if the children stayed at home
they
would have to drop out of school," said Sister Kristiana, a tiny Catholic
nun
who helps run the orphanage. "It is more important to have an education and
a
future, and that is why they are here."
Even with the backing of the Catholic Church, St. Vincentius is having a
hard
time raising the money it needs to survive, Sister Kristiana said. "It is
possible that we will have to close," she said. "If we do, what will happen
to
the children?"
Both of Ipan's parents are blind. Every day, his father goes begging for
work,
while Ipan guides his mother, Susiningsih, 40, on the bus into the center
of
Jakarta's financial district. There, not far from a Planet Hollywood
restaurant, she sits cross-legged on a pedestrian overpass and begs eight
hours every day. Her 2-year-old child, malnourished and shockingly thin,
lies
in her dirty lap, suckling on her breast without a sound. A cup in front of
her contains the donations she has received in the last eight hours: three
1,000-rupiah notes, less than 25 cents. Nearby, her 16-year-old daughter
begs
with her own baby feeding at her breast. Her cup is empty.
Susiningsih says her family no longer eats cooked food because she can't
afford it, and because she had to sell her pots and pans to earn cash.
"I don't know who to blame, but since I was little this is the first time
I've
had to do something like this," she says. "The first time I sat here, I was
really ashamed. But I will not let my family die starving."
The next day, Susiningsih was arrested for begging. She and her two young
daughters, as well as her older daughter and her infant, were taken to a
jail
-- which police describe as a rehabilitation center -- where they were put
in
a communal cell with about 40 other women and babies.
There are no blankets, no toys and virtually no sound except babies crying.
The women sit and stare and hang laundry on the bars, waiting to get back
to
the streets to beg again.
"We didn't do anything wrong; we didn't steal," Susiningsih tells a
visitor.
As she speaks, Tuti, 4, presses her face against the bars, staring out and
crying softly.
When the afterburners of Asia's "miracle" rise to wealth were still firing,
there were high hopes for the children's future. But as more and more drop
out
of school and go to work, those hopes are fading.
South Korea, the richest of the countries in crisis, plans to spend about
$80
million this year to cover school fees to keep a quarter-million students
from
dropping out.
Indonesian officials say 2.7 million children may drop out this year.
Education and Culture Minister Juwono Sudarsono said only 54 percent of the
nation's children are now in school, down from 78 percent last year. He
said
he has pushed school registration deadlines back from July to this month to
allow parents who can't afford fees more time to raise them. He said that
in
more rural areas, he has also eased requirements that children wear
uniforms
to school, to spare families that expense. At the Xavier School in the
village
of Kalirejo on Sumatra, only 50 of the expected 120 junior high school
students showed up when classes began in July. Most of the students, age 12
or
13, have gone to work on their parents' farms, as household helpers in more
prosperous homes, or in the dangerous business of crushing stones for road
construction. The village's corn, rice and other crops have been devastated
by
drought, and the financial crisis has sent the cost of a kilogram of rice
from
9 cents to about 16 cents -- a difference most families here can't pay.
In Bangkok, Jantha Siriprang cast her eyes downward, a look of
embarrassment
and regret on her face when asked about her two children. She doesn't want
them to have to work, but she has no choice. She lost her job carrying
cement
at a construction site when the baht, the Thai currency, collapsed and the
construction industry dried up. And now the little money she makes selling
candy and cigarettes on the street is not enough to pay the children's bus
fare to school -- let alone their school fees.
So for now, her son, Num Siriprang, 12, is still in school but washes
dishes
in a restaurant for four hours every night for wages paid mainly in food.
"It's very difficult now," his mother said. "I don't have any money. If I
can
find jobs for them, I'll take them both out of school."
Increasing numbers of young dropouts are turning to crime. Courts across
the
region report increases in juvenile robberies, theft and violent assaults,
as
children do whatever it takes to feed themselves.
The Geneva-based International Labor Organization released a study in
August
concluding that the sex industry in Asia, particularly child prostitution,
is
far larger than governments admit -- with revenues of up to $3.3 billion a
year in Indonesia -- and that the economic crisis is driving more children
into the flesh trade.
The author of the study, Lin Lean Lim, said in an interview that strong
laws
against child prostitution in Thailand and Indonesia may stem the increase
somewhat. But she said many families suddenly facing poverty will see their
children as their only commodity, selling them into prostitution or
domestic
work that is essentially slavery. Her study says that in some rural areas
of
Thailand, the going price for a 12-year-old girl is $800 to $1,600, and
vanloads of sex-industry recruiters drive to villages to buy girls on
sixth-
grade graduation day.
"When it comes to economic factors, parents will still argue that at least
their children are earning an income, and that argument is going to become
stronger in circumstances where everyone is suffering," said Lim, who also
said devalued Asian currencies may make child "sex tours" an "even cheaper
thrill for customers from other regions.
"We have worked so hard for so long to get ahead, not just economically,
but
socially," said Lim, who is Malaysian. "We were beginning to feel a sense
of
pride about where we'd gotten. Now the really sad part is that we're seeing
poverty again in a way we'd almost forgotten."
Correspondents Keith B. Richburg in Thailand and Mary Jordan in South Korea
contributed to this article.

? Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company