‘Goodbye Street Life’: Assuming The Best Interests of Street Children in Indonesia

Please use the following format for citation:

Octarra, H.S. (2020). ‘Goodbye street life’: Assuming the best interests of street children in Indonesia [Online]. Yayasan Tuwuh Svara Insani. Available at: https://www.yatsvi.org/post/goodbye-street-life-assuming-the-best-interests-of-street-children-in-indonesia (Accessed: day, month, year)

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ABSTRACT

Ideally, children belong to a family and a school, not on the streets. This belief influences the new policy for street children in Indonesia. While studies have been conducted to identify street children’s risks, problems, and causes for their being on the streets, policies addressing these issues often overlook the complexities of their lives. Through a critical analysis informed by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, this paper will demonstrate that the policy’s assumption—that street children should no longer be on the streets—and its emphasis on family intervention, are not in the best interests of street children in Indonesia.

Keywords: street children, UNCRC, children’s welfare, policy

*This article was first presented in the 10th Joint Area Centers Symposium ‘Children and Globalization: Issues, Policies and Initiatives’,10-12 April, 2014, University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign, Illinois USA. This version has been updated.

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INTRODUCTION

In Indonesia, street children are often associated with poverty and domestic violence or the combination of the two factors (Temaluru and Ricaldi-Coquelin, 2005; Demartoto, 2012). Poverty that is not effectively addressed has been seen as a cause of children being on the streets (Direktorat Pelayanan Sosial Anak, 2010). According to the Indonesian Ministry of Social Affairs (MoSA), in 2006, there were approximately 232,000 children living on the streets of medium and large cities across the country. The number tends to decrease over the years. Ms. Indar Parawansa, the Minister of Social Affairs, claimed to Kompas.com (20 November 2017) that the number of street children in 2010 was 159 thousand, and that, according to ministry data, there were 16.290 street children across 21 provinces in 2017. She indicated that the new policy, combining professional social work intervention and social protection approaches, enabled the government to reintegrate street children with their families[1].

Relevant to the country’s poverty alleviation development agenda, there have been policies and initiatives implemented across the country using cash transfer for social assistance[2]. For example, unconditional cash transfer (Bantuan Langsung Tunai) for poor households in 2005 and 2008, cash transfer for vulnerable elderly and disabled people since 2006, and conditional cash transfer (Program Keluarga Harapan) since 2007 targeting very poor families in order to get children into school and to be able to access health facilities (The World Bank, 2012a, 2012b). In 2010, MoSA introduced a new social welfare policy for children, called ‘the social welfare program for children’ (Program Kesejahteraan Sosial Anak, or PKSA), which also uses a cash transfer system. Street children are one of the targets of this new social welfare policy. This social protection is combined with face-to-face intervention by newly recruited graduates of the social work program called Sakti Peksos.

Research has shown that the risks for children working on the streets of Indonesia and elsewhere include, but are not limited to, physical and sexual abuse, accidents, stigmatization, health problems, and discrimination (e.g. Rizzini and Lusk, 1995; Sunarno et al., 2008; Irwanto et al., 2009; de Benitez, 2011; Wongso, 2016). Although these risks have become the focus of various projects for street children in Indonesia[3], there is still a lack of comprehensive interventions to address them (Afandi, 2011). Street children face difficulties accessing basic services, especially health and education, despite initiatives implemented by the government or civil society (Temaluru and Ricaldi-Coquelin, 2005; Sunarno et al., 2008; Irwanto et al., 2009). Furthermore, there is evidence that street children have experienced stigmatization and discrimination in accessing these services (Sunarno et al., 2008; Irwanto & Kusumaningrum, 2014).

The Government of Indonesia is committed to implementing the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), and the PKSA was introduced to prove its commitment. PKSA was initially designed to address problems related to children who were outside of the regular government arms, such as children in conflict with the law, trafficked children, children with HIV, and children living on the street. The not-so-new policy also aims to reduce the number of poor families by addressing social welfare issues (BAPPENAS, 2012). This paper focuses on the sub-program for street children, referred to as ‘PKSA street children’s policy’ or ‘the policy’. The policy requires that the families of street children should prevent them from working on the streets. It embeds the best interests of the child within the context of the family’s interests. The perception that the family is the best environment for children to grow up in underpins the policy[4]. Indeed, this conception, which many sociologists (such as Prout, Qvortrup, and Hendrick) refer to as familialisation, characterizes the new policy that preserves children's subordinate status within the family.

Through critical analysis, this paper shows that the policy’s assumption that street children should no longer be on the streets, as well as its insistence on family intervention, is not in the best interests of street children in Indonesia. The first part discusses how street children are being perceived within the discourse of social welfare in Indonesia. Following that, the paper analyses familialisation as the policy’s underlying conceptualization of childhood and how the policy takes into account the best interests of the child principle of the UNCRC. Then, this paper continues by showing how these assumptions are causing problems with the policy and its implementation, followed by the conclusion.

STREET CHILDREN AND SOCIAL WELFARE IN INDONESIA

One of the main challenges in interventions and policies for street children is the use of diverse definitions of ‘street children’ by different stakeholders. Factors used in defining street children include family contact, hours spent on the streets, and perception of the street as both a workplace and a place to live (Glauser, 1997; Rizzini and Lusk, 1995; Beazley, 2003a). These definitions are often made or chosen to fit the targets of projects or interventions rather than being developed from the complex, interrelated problems faced by street children (Glauser, 1997). Another challenge is that street children are hidden in statistics (Statistics Indonesia, 2009; de Benitez, 2011). The figures frequently cited over the past two decades are that there are between 10 and 100 million street children worldwide. Although the statistics are unreliable, there are claims that the number of street children is increasing every day (de Benitez, 2011, p. 64). Mobility is an inherent characteristic of street children’s lives, making them difficult to count and raising the reliability of the figures into question (de Benitez, 2011).

For MoSA, street children have always been placed in a category of ‘people with social welfare problems’ (Penyandang Masalah Kesejahteraan Sosial) alongside people with disabilities, orphans, beggars, etc. Social welfare is defined as the condition where the material, spiritual, and social needs of the citizens are met, thus enabling them to live well and develop the ability to function within society (Law of the Republic of Indonesia Number 11 Year 2009 on Social Welfare). This conceptualization of street children suggests that their needs are not met and that they are therefore unable to develop properly within society without the support of social welfare.

In PKSA's street children’s policy, the definition of street children is children between 6 and 18 years old who are prone to work on the streets, are working in the streets, and those who work and live on the streets (Direktorat Pelayanan Sosial Anak, 2010). It is a broad definition, and by lumping the range of street children's experiences into a single definition, it may leave insufficient room to understand other aspects of the phenomenon. For example, although children are separated from family it does not mean they are alone. They may be living in groups or gangs, whom they regard as their ‘families’ (Beazley, 2003b), or they may be living with exploitative adults (West, 2003). Considering these complexities, Glauser (1997) argues, is paramount when addressing the deeper problems and root causes of street children. This confirms Afandi’s analysis that one of the problems with current policies for street children in Indonesia is that they lack the ability to address the complexities of these young people’s lives (2011, p. 22).

The provisions of PKSA street children’s policy include assistance for meeting children's basic needs, access to essential social services, strengthening parents, families, and institutions for children's social welfare, and one-on-one supervision by a SAKTI Peksos or social worker when necessary. The policy aims to strategically improve child welfare and protection by supporting poor families. Within MoSA's social welfare framework, PKSA is part of the social assistance structure. Central to social assistance are conditional cash transfers (CCT). The mechanism involves opening a bank account for the child with the help of a social worker or partner institution assigned to PKSA. Parents are responsible for ensuring that the funds are used for the child's basic needs. Social workers and partner institutions are required to assist parents in this responsibility.

FAMILIALISATION OF CHILDHOOD

On street children in Indonesia, Beazley (2003b) writes,

“In the eyes of the state and dominant society, these children are seen to be committing a social violation, as their very presence contradicts state ideological discourse on family values and ideas about public order” (p. 105).

This statement suggests that street children exist as a social problem; their existence contests the ideology within the family-state relationship. The basic assumption of PKSA street children’s policy is that the improvement of welfare and protection of children should be integrated with the improvement of welfare for poor families. Therefore, through social assistance, poor families would be able to meet their children's basic needs and improve their welfare and safety. In the case of street children, this means that if their basic needs are met by their families, then they should no longer be on the streets (MoSA Decree, 2010). Indeed, the policy puts the family’s interests in the public sphere.

Näsman (1994) argues that the social construction of childhood is influenced by the dynamics of state- family- child relationships. On the one hand, there are systems (e.g., schooling, healthcare systems) that aim to support the well-being of children and promote their rights in ways that lessen parents' social control. On the other hand, there are also systems in place that increase parental control, such as economic support and housing. Qvortrup (2005) said that “nowhere have children a constitutionally based right to receive welfare support from the state” (p. 10). Together, Näsman and Qvortrup’s ideas suggest that even though children are mentioned in family welfare policies, their interests are not yet a primary concern.

Familialisation is the assumption incorporated in the PKSA street children’s policy. It is defined as “the fusion of childhood into family institution to such an extent that it becomes an inseparable unit, which obstructs the social visibility of its weaker part as a separate entity” (Makrinioti, 1994, p. 268). It preserves children’s inferior status within the family. This is a traditional view of childhood: children are inseparable from the family and part of a whole (Cunningham, 1995). In Indonesia, childbearing is influenced by tradition and culture, which underscore the responsibility that children have toward their family and place power in the parents’ hands (Statistics Indonesia, 2009). According to Hendrick (2005), this power inequality among family members supports the idea of familialisation.

Unlike this viewpoint, street children usually earn money, which fosters their independence. In Indonesia, street children see money as an income; they earn it by working for it (Temaluru and Ricaldi-Coquelin, 2005; Sunarno et al., 2008). Whereas MoSA’s social welfare framework views street children as facing challenges in functioning within society, these children see working as a normal part of childhood. Work encourages independence and changes family relationships; therefore, children’s participation in economic activities influences their own idea of childhood (Myers, 1991; Mizen et al., 2001; Mayall, 2002). Although street children are accustomed to contributing to their family’s income or meeting their own needs, the policy suggests that this role should be “restored” to parents.

Familialisation emphasizes the role of parents in being responsible for looking after their children’s interests, and so policies incorporating this concept use families as the medium for intervention (Prout, 2005). Qvortrup (2005, p. 10) suggests that familialisation can also be seen as children being subsumed in the family. PKSA street children’s policy represents both of the two characteristics of familialisation, as can be seen from the following excerpt:

Paradigma baru akan difokuskan pada upaya yang intensif berupa dukungan terhadap keluarga agar anak memperoleh hak-hak dasarnya. Jika keluarganya mengalami masalah sosial sehingga dapat menghambat tumbuh kembang anak, harus diupayakan penguatan dan bantuan terhadap orang tua/keluarga (family support), sehingga anak dapat terpenuhi hak-hak dasarnya.

“The new paradigm will focus on intensive support for families in order for the children to have their rights fulfilled. If families are having social problems that delay children’s development, then reinforcement and assistance should be given to the parents/family (family support), so that children’s basic rights are met” (MoSA Decree, 2010, p. 11, author’s translation).

As with all children’s childhoods, street children’s childhood is dynamic[5]. Therefore, in contrast to the excerpt above, understanding their childhood should not be subsumed within family discourse. It is important to investigate how childhood is constructed within children’s lives. Street children are both formed and shaped by their street culture (Beazley, 2003a). They are defining their childhood according to their own realities. For example, these children may embrace education yet remain working in the streets[6]. Since the policy seeks to alter their realities, it would require reconstructing these children’s roles within the family and society.

‘THE BEST INTERESTS’ OF STREET CHILDREN: ASSUMPTIONS AT WORK

The PKSA policy framework is founded upon a right-based welfare approach as inspired by the UNCRC. Claiming a ‘paradigm shift’ from an institutionalized approach for children with social problems into a family-based support, the policy believes this new paradigm will ensure the fulfillment of children’s rights. The question is whether giving support to families is the best approach for street children. It is useful here to review the UNCRC’s principle of ‘best interests of the child’.

“In all actions concerning children, whether undertaken by public or private social welfare institutions, courts of law, administrative authorities or legislative bodies, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration” (Article 3 [1] of the UNCRC).

As outlined by Article 3, ‘best interests of the child’ is one of the core principles of the UNCRC (Zermatten, 2010, p. 484). The principle is primarily concerned with the acts of public officials (Detrick, 1999). Implementing this best interests principle goes beyond suggesting that policy makers should think about whether certain policies, services or provisions address the interests of children or not. It requires them to apply appropriate measures and set procedures that enable children’s interests to be explored, while taking their interests into account in decision making (Zermatten, 2010). As different parties may claim to know what is best for street children (e.g. social workers, public and private social welfare institutions, parents), the question raised is to what extent these children have the right to determine how they wish to live their own lives.

Unfortunately, ‘the best interests of the child’ principle is not self-explanatory. The principle neither elaborates what the interests of children are nor specifically outlines the tasks and procedures that are necessary in order to address them (Zermatten, 2010; Tisdall and Punch, 2012). It is unclear how decisions should be made about what is in the best interest of children and the factors that need to be considered (Detrick, 1999). Freeman (2007) suggests that including children’s wishes or feelings or needs could further the understanding of this principle. Due to the ‘indeterminate’ (Detrick, 1999; Freeman, 2007) nature of this principle, different governments may have different ways of interpreting it. In the example of PKSA policy, an interpretation of children’s best interests resulted in provisions of family-based intervention.

Lusk (1989) suggests that society's perception of street children shapes the policies and programs created to help them. PKSA aligns with this idea. The social welfare approach that maintains the subordinate status of children and reflects Indonesia's dominant view of childhood creates tension. While the policy claims to uphold children’s rights as outlined in the UNCRC, it actually reflects a different view of childhood. To better analyze whether the policy respects children’s best interests according to the UNCRC, examining other UNCRC articles would be helpful; it is also important to recognize that the principle of the "best interests of the child" does not exist in isolation (Zermatten, 2010).

Article 12 of the UNCRC, which states the right of the child to have their views heard, complements Article 3 because it is considered to be the prerequisite when considering the best interests of the child (Logan, 2008; Zermatten, 2010). This argument suggests that children must have a voice in deciding what is best for them, but it does not mean that they alone should make the decision for themselves. To understand this is to understand the wording of the best interests principle, ‘a primary consideration’. The choice of ‘a’ instead of ‘the’ was intended for flexibility in deciding the best interests (Detrick, 1999). It was considered necessary by the drafters of the convention because there are extreme cases where other parties might have prior interests. In PKSA street children’s policy there are clearly other considerations, namely the interests of both the family and state. Although the policy states that they should not completely supersede children’s interests, the policy consistently emphasises the role of families, social workers or partner institutions in its operational guidelines. For instance, the management of the social assistance fund (usually in the form of bank savings account) is the responsibility of parents and a social worker. In another example, the families are required to prevent the children from taking part in activities on the streets (Direktorat Pelayanan Sosial Anak, 2010). Children’s voices seem to have no place in the implementation of the policy.

Another problematic approach of PKSA street children’s policy is the method used to reach out to the children which relies on data collected by social workers and partner institutions (The World Bank, 2012b; BAPPENAS, 2012). Consequently, the opportunity of street children to have their best interests recognised relies on the database of the institutions and there is evidence that the database is problematic. The reviews of the policy show that there are issues in the identification of street children as beneficiaries due to unstandardized criteria for eligibility (The World Bank, 2012b; BAPPENAS, 2012). Definition of street children is problematic, as mentioned earlier, and the policy confirms it.

If street children are also drug users, this complicates placing them under a single category. These children need treatment and rehabilitation that require collaboration between the health and social sectors. After treatment and rehabilitation, reintegration into family and community presents another challenge. This is not only because parents often lack the means to prevent their children from working on the streets (Unicef and Kementerian Sosial Republik Indonesia, 2015), but also because family conditions are significant factors to consider[7].

It is essential to recognise that family conditions are often the cause of children working in the streets (Rizzini and Lusk, 1995). Street children are often experiencing abuse, neglect and exploitation from their parents (Rizzini and Lusk, 1995; Ennew, 2002). PKSA street children’s policy stipulates that the social assistance fund is a way to help parents in undertaking their responsibilities. It already assumes that street children’s parents need parenting support from social workers. However, recent review has found that this assumption in practice is problematic. The kind of parenting support they will receive from the social workers remains unclear, and is overshadowed by the social workers lack of capacity, among other problems (The World Bank, 2012b).

Assumptions can be falsely taken as truths; therefore, it is easy to ignore the basis of assumptions (Piper, 2000). PKSA street children’s policy perceives street children as having problems and a change of behaviour and attitude is expected to tackle these, without clearly requiring significant change in the system of caregiving. It assumes that the family is the best environment for children to grow up in, hence children’s interests are subsumed within the family. Indeed, familialisation overlooks deeper issues, and its assumptions have directed the policy away from the best interests of street children.

The target of PKSA street children’s policy and therefore implicit in the CCT conditionalities are: improvement in children’s ability to function within society (positive behaviour and attitude change) and more responsible parenting and care (MoSA Decree, 2010). Unfortunately, the ‘behaviour change’ or ‘children’s functioning’, as mentioned in the policy documents, are not explained. Nowhere in the policy documents is there a clear definition of the two terms given. The guidance for implementing the policy provides an obscure checklist of behaviours that the children should no longer exhibit (Direktorat Pelayanan Sosial Anak, 2010), but the behaviours listed are ‘normal’ for street children[8]. Instead of recognising street children in their own right, within their own dynamics and understanding of childhood, the policy asserts that street children are a category with social problems. They are required to comply with an ambiguous list of ways to function in society. Accordingly, the policy gives families the responsibility of helping children achieve this equivocal target.

Addressing poverty using the rights-based approach requires accessibility and not only availability of resources (Boesen and Martin, 2007). The visible face of poverty is found in slum areas, and access to basic services is far from the people who live there. Worsened by sanitary and hygiene problems, these conditions make street children’s environments life-threatening (UNICEF, 2002) and yet this is where the family, the best environment for street children, mostly reside. PKSA sees poverty as the root cause of street children, hence the social assistance fund. However, as with many other poverty alleviation policies in Indonesia, the policy is facing problems in relation to the mechanisms and procedures for distributing the fund (Irwanto, 2011; BAPPENAS, 2012). While this social assistance fund is taking centre stage, problems such as access to health and education, as well as the weak coordination between stakeholders in improving street children’s welfare, are still being identified (Irwanto, 2011; The World Bank, 2012b; BAPPENAS, 2012).

CONCLUSION

In the light of Indonesia’s social welfare framework, street children will remain problematic as long as they exist in the streets. This notion relies heavily on Indonesia’s social welfare framework. Consequently, policies under this framework, including the PKSA street children’s policy, are expected to embrace the historically deep-rooted assumption that regards family as the best environment for children to live and grow up in. This paper has demonstrated that a tension exists: the policy seeks to implement the UNCRC, yet it is underpinned by a different conceptualization of children (i.e., familialisation).

This paper has explained the assumptions inherent in the PKSA street children’s policy. The assumption that street children should live with their families, be able to go to school, and not be on the streets has been proven to be problematic and does not adequately address the complex issues surrounding the lives of street children. The policy assumes that adults are the best people to determine children’s interests. It has no mechanism to ensure that the process of listening to children’s views is in place. To that end, the concept of familialisation that underlies the policy has failed to convince that children’s interests are not being hidden from view within the family.

This analysis, using ‘the best interests of the child’ principle of the UNCRC, has shown that this principle is subsumed into a poverty reduction scheme that has overstated social assistance and treats symptoms rather than addresses the complexity of street children’s problems. In short, PKSA's street children’s policy is a poverty-reduction policy based on the concept of social welfare and on seeing children as an integral part of the family rather than as subjects in their own right. The best interests of these children have not yet become a primary consideration of this new policy. The problem is that, while it is embarking on a rights-based direction, its conceptualization of children means there will always be tension with that approach.

FUTURE POLICY IMPLICATIONS

This article was originally written in 2014, and this section was added to note the significant development of PKSA policy since then. While doing so, the information presented here will show that the tenet of familialisation, seeing children as an integrated part of the family rather than as subjects in their own right, still casts a shadow on the policy’s new shape and form. Since 2016, the PKSA policy has morphed into PKSAI (Program Kesejahteraan Sosial Anak Integratif). With an emphasis on the "I" for integrative, PKSAI is an integrated service across the health, social, education, and protection sectors that come together to meet the needs of vulnerable children, including street children. As such, it is often found as a physical place where local government sectors work together and share tasks to deliver services ranging from the early detection of children’s vulnerabilities (economic, abuse, school dropout, disabilities, and so on) to social rehabilitation. It also aims to address challenges of a lack of coordination between social and care workers in the field, including the disproportionate number of social workers (SAKTI Peksos) in comparison to the needs (Unicef and Kementerian Sosial Republik Indonesia, 2015). Included in this program are child protection services such as psychosocial support, alternative care, legal assistance, and family strengthening programs. Looking at these kinds of services—although further study is required—one can assume that while family is the entry point of PKSAI for addressing various problems of vulnerable children, the children’s voices could easily be overlooked while care workers, parents, and frontline staff are busy deciding what’s best for the children using their own considerations. Such an approach means that there will always be a tension with the rights-based approach.

The government has noted that PKSAI has significantly expanded its reach to vulnerable children and those needing special protection[9] (Direktorat Rehabilitasi Sosial Anak, 2018). However, the effectiveness of its actual service delivery remains to be evaluated. Additionally, with other social assistance programs such as PKH (Program Keluarga Harapan), which target poor families, alignment and integration of PKSAI with such programs are expected (UNICEF and Kementerian Sosial Republik Indonesia, 2015). In these processes, the best interests of vulnerable children should be a primary consideration.

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Note of thanks I am grateful to Chevening Scholarship for funding my Masters studies during which this article was conceived, and to childhood studies colleagues at Edinburgh, Scotland and Urbana-Champaign, Illinois for productive discussions that helped in strengthening my arguments in this article. Last but not least, I would like to thank Professor Irwanto at Atma Jaya Catholic University of Indonesia for his great input and kind remarks on this article.

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[1] Information is added to this version.

[2] Cash transfer for social assistance refers to the scheme where the government transfers a certain amount of money to poor families (or other targeted beneficiaries) to support the meeting of their basic needs (e.g., food, health, education).

[3] For example: Jaminan Pelayanan Kesehatan Keluarga Miskin (JPK-GAKIN) (Health Service Assurance for Poor Families) by the local government of Jakarta special province; Mobil Sahabat Anak (educative vans for street children) by MoSA.

[4] As found in the policy document, “PKSA is a vehicle for building a family-based social assistance system and implementing reinforcement of parenting/family responsibility” (MoSA Decree, 2010, p. 12, author’s translation).

[5] Qvortrup (2007) argues that, as a structural form as well as a social phenomenon, childhood is a dynamic period. It changes because children’s constructions of their childhoods differ from one to another, but at the same time, childhood will remain part of society as long as children exist.

[6] This is based on the author’s experiences of befriending street children and first-hand knowledge from conducting research with street children in Jakarta, Indonesia.

[7] Findings from the evaluation are added to this version.

[8] For example: stop doing street activities, not consuming illicit drugs, not telling lies, and going back to live with families (author’s translation).

[9] Street children are included in this category.

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