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Indonesia
• The BPS also estimated that 23% of
domestic workers in all of Indonesia are
aged between 10 and 18.
• A census in 1999 found that 30% of girls
and young women aged 10–24 in Java,
West Sumatra and East Kalimantan had a
first marriage at age 16 or younger.
Against this complex background, agencies
work to promote child protection in practice.
The need for increased access to quality
education emerged many times in the course
of this Indonesia study. Communities and
families express this as a priority for their
children. It is seen as bringing benefit in the
immediate and longer term, and as a
resource against factors such as economic
downturn or political or ethnic tension.
Children themselves want to build their
options through education.
The Government of Indonesia has
committed itself to implementing the UN
Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC),
which it ratified on 25 August 1990. A
National CRC Coordinating Agency within
the Ministry for People’s Welfare is
responsible for coordinating the
implementation. 2 In addition, the National
Government under the current President has
been encouraging Provincial governments to
develop social protection policies, which will
include child protection issues.
Access to education
Each year, there are about a million
Indonesian children aged 7–12 years not
enrolled in primary school. Of those who do
enrol, nearly one million drop out before
completing the primary cycle. The proportion
of Indonesian children entering first grade of
primary school who eventually reached grade
5 was about 83% in 2000. In the age group
13–15 years, some six million children never
enrol in junior secondary school – the three
additional years required for compulsory
basic education. Of those that do, some
200,000 drop out before completing.
This means that there are at least seven
million children in the age group 7–15 years
who are either out of school, or have never
been to school. These children come mostly
from poorer groups, and allowing them to
drop out means a perpetuation of the
poverty cycle, as well as acceptance of
system inefficiency.
These are also the children who are more
vulnerable to child labour and exploitation.
One report estimates a third of all registered
and unregistered commercial sex workers
(between 40,000 and 70,000) in Indonesia to
be under 18 years old. A 1999 survey by the
Department of Social Affairs registered about
40,000 street children in 12 major cities
across Indonesia. Most of these children go
home to their families, but some 4–7% are
homeless and actually live on the streets,
vulnerable to abuse, disease and exploitation.
Government spending on education listed
for 1997 is only 1.4 % of GDP. In 2000
(the most recent figures available), the
estimated enrolment rate for primary
education is 95%. This drops to 47% for
secondary school. 3
An integrated approach
One area of child protection practice
common to Government, United Nations
Agencies and World Vision strategies in
Indonesia is that of promoting access to
education, and school retention, for children
at risk. Part of this strategy is the scaling-up
of successful practice. Collaboration between
the Ministry of Education, two Universities
and World Vision has led to the development
of a four-year program that is addressing the
issue of access, retention and capacity, as well
as ensuring that child rights are further
integrated into teaching practice.
As World Vision’s child abuse and neglect
(CAN) study 4 emphasised, education has a
key role not only in increasing the life options
of the child, but also in involving parents
more fully in the development of their
2
Source: Indonesia Country Profile, update, UNICEF, February 2002
3
Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS), 2001
4
Dorning, K, Crying Out: Children and communities speak on abuse and neglect, World Vision International, 2002 (http://www.wvi.org/imagine/can.htm)
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