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By Lynn Lee & Wahyudi Soeriaatmadja, Indonesia Correspondents
JAKARTA: At a bustling intersection in East Jakarta, 10-year-old Anwar sits inside a bus shelter, his face streaked with dirt and his hair matted with perspiration.
When cars stop at the traffic lights, he hurtles up to them, clapping and singing until drivers give him some spare change.
He can collect up to 15,000 rupiah (S$2.30) by evening when he returns to a halfway house to spend the night.
'I like it here on the street,' he insisted, falling silent when The Straits Times asks where his parents are.
Street children like Anwar have become a common sight along Jakarta's potholed roads and crowded bus and train stations. There are now an estimated 12,000 street children under the age of 18 in the capital. Nationwide, the number is around 233,000 - up from just 36,000 in 1997.
Here and in other big cities across Indonesia, they loiter on the street begging, busking and performing odd jobs such as sheltering pedestrians with umbrellas when it rains.
They are vulnerable not just to the elements. Adults with bad intentions are also a bigger threat.
Last month, a cigarette vendor was nabbed in East Jakarta for the murder of a nine-year-old boy, also a street child.
Baekuni, 49, has since confessed to sodomising and killing at least 13 other children. He admitted chopping up some of their bodies before dumping them in rivers and deserted fields.
He was a familiar face to street children. He had been sheltering them for years, under the guise of being a caring, childless man.
But in statements to police, some children said they had given part of their busking earnings to him. They said that he also liked to bathe them and at times had forced himself sexually on them.
Their revelations prompted police and Jakarta's social services agency to announce two weeks ago that they would conduct rectal examinations of street children. That idea was dropped when activists said that such examinations would violate children's rights.
Officials at the Ministry of Social Affairs have since said that they aim to clear street children from big Indonesian cities by next year. Last week, the director of rehabilitation services at the ministry, Mr Makmur Sunusi, told lawmakers the problem of street children had worsened as levels of funding had not kept pace with population growth, among other things.
Social workers pointed to another worrying trend - the children living on the roadside are getting younger.
'They used to be at least aged 10 and above. Now, you'll see children as young as a year old, being carried by their older siblings, out on the street,' said Mr Arist Merdeka Sirait, secretary-general of the Jakarta-based non-governmental group, the National Commission for Child Protection.
He listed three reasons these children roam the streets. They either have no home or known families, are escaping from poor and cramped conditions at home, or are part of a family that lives on the streets.
Social workers said that money is not the full solution to the problem. They pointed out that the government and society must first stop seeing street children as criminals. Often, the police round them up and treat them roughly, even breaking the busking instruments that the children love, they said.
'There needs to be a way to protect children who are at risk of going to the street and those who are already out there,' said Mr Sammy Lapudooh, who heads the Yogyakarta-based Dreamhouse organisation for street children.
This could include funding public spaces and activity centres for children to while away their time, he said, so they do not end up with adults like Baekuni.
The global children's rights group Unicef believes that funding should go to families to strengthen their ability to care for children. It is working with the Social Affairs Ministry to formulate rules and funding guidelines to provide better welfare for children, said Unicef's communications officer Lely Djuhari.
The children's talents can also be put to better use, said Mr Arist. Funds could go to mobile schools and community business projects. For instance, talented children could perform at cafes, while those who are good with their hands could help out at workshops and learn how to repair motorcycles.
'These children have potential,' said Mr Arist. 'We must see them as victims, and try to help them.'
lynnlee@sph.com.sg
wahyudis@sph.com.sg
This article was first published in The Straits Times.
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