This paper concerning street children in Indonesia aims to clarify what street children are doing, why
they have become street children and live in streets, and how they are supported in Indonesia, centering
on Jakarta. As a result, this paper consists of five chapters. The first chapter is Introduction. The second
chapter presents the description of current situation of street children, and the third chapter reviews the
legislation on street children. The fourth chapter describes the care and services for street children, and
the last chapter is Concluding remarks. The outline of this paper is as follows.
Street children in Jakarta mostly work in the informal sector as shoe-shiners, street peddling, street
singers, baggage carriers, car washers, beggars, and illegal parking assistants etc. People can find them
easily in such areas as traditional market, mall, train station, bus station, or congested intersection.
Poverty is regarded as one of the most notable reasons for being street children in Indonesia. Poverty
clearly plays a major role in low school participation and drop out, pushing children to the street, pushing
girl children into commercial sex industry, and pushing children to work full or part-time earlier.
Furthermore, the urban phenomenon of street children in Indonesia is largely related to such serious
family problems as family discord, domestic violence, divorce, abuse, remarriage involving children, and
so on.
The pattern of their dwellings varies from street children’s conditions. There are more than seven
children who live together renting a small house in a common neighborhood, while there are lots of children
using a place such as in front of a store, in the terminal, in a park, under a bridge, or in the market
as their shelters.
In relation to the services and protections for street children at the Government level, policy makers’
response was very late although they have been recognizing the serious street children’s problems
over the last decade. Until 1996/7 government response to the problem of street children was similar response
to the problems of adults Homeless and Beggars, which were based on the general idea that only
income generating programs would be adequate.
The first government sponsored program responding to the specific needs of street children implemented
by Ministry of Social Affairs began only with a multi-year UNDP (United Nations Development
Program) assisted project called “The Protection and Provision of Social Assistance to Street Children
through Open House”. This program was designed and implemented as a crises response through intensive
cooperation with NGOs in seven main cities in Indonesia.
After the program the number of Open House (OH) fully managed by NGOs has been increasing since
then. As a whole, OH aims to help street children to move out of street life, and it functions as a place
where children may find refuge, education (literacy programs), foods, and psycho-social help.
Although each NGO has their own way of helping street children through the intervention process in
OH, the practices of NGOs basically cannot be separated from the political and economic conditions in
Indonesia. Accordingly, some confusion and problems recently took place between government agencies
and NGOs in the actual implementations of the OH concept and its operation. Consequently, OHs have
had to face many obstacles in developing the centre including limited funds, limited authority and freedom
to operate its own centre, the limited number of social workers to deal with the children in the
centre and so on.
After all, Indonesia Government does not yet enact the comprehensive legislation and policy for supporting
street children, and so the Government seems to be irresponsible for Indonesia people because
Government policy makers have not discharged their duty to save and support street children, although
they have recognized the existence of lots of street children over the last decade.departmental bulletin pape
