Gender and Development

Hope for Street Girls

By Omana Nair (onair@adb.org)
External Relations Officer

In the wake of the financial crisis, street children have become a common sight at most major intersections in Indonesia’s large cities. They sing and dance or strum on a battered guitar—and then make beelines for taxis or expensive cars to beg for a bit of change.

On 1 November 2000, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) launched its Japan Fund for Poverty Reduction with a US$1 million project in Indonesia to help young female street children, who are often victims of sexual abuse and child prostitution. The fund, which has resources of US$90 million and is financed by the Japanese Government, was established in May 2000 to provide grants for poverty reduction activities that add substantive value to projects financed by ADB.

A 1999 ADB survey of 12 Indonesian cities found that girls make up 20 percent of Indonesia’s estimated 170,000 street children—and that programs for street children have concentrated on boys.

“We hope to help female street children in Yogyakarta with counseling services and health and medical care in collaboration with nongovernment organizations (NGOs),” says Kus Hardjanti, ADB’s task manager for the Project. “We will provide prenatal and postnatal care for pregnant girls and young mothers. We will also treat girls with sexually transmitted infections, train social workers to deal with female street children, and organize public information campaigns against child prostitution.”

Shelters Giving Hope

Visits with a group of journalists to a few shelters for female street children in Yogyakarta provided insights of how these young women are starting to lead normal lives.

Mariam, one of the occupants in the Ghifari shelter for female street children in Yogyakarta, had been living on the streets of Sumatra and Java for six years. She ended up in Yogyakarta. “Someone poisoned my father, and the shock caused my mother to have a heart attack,” says Mariam. She was eight years old. Left in the care of her uncle, she was raped at the age of 10. Mariam left her home in Padang, West Sumatra and took to the streets, where she was subjected to more sexual abuse. A police officer took her to the shelter in 1999.

“I’m now happy here. I have people I can call parents, who take care of me and educate me,” she says.

Ulun Nuha, a social worker at Ghifari, says that economic problems are not the only reason children go into the streets. “Yogyakarta is heaven for street kids because they consider it more friendly than other cities. Seventy percent of the street kids here are from other areas in Indonesia,” he says.

“Once on the streets, they are forever marked as bad girls who are easily preyed upon by local hoods,” says Kirik Erwanto, an NGO volunteer.

In July 2000 in Yogyakarta, street children numbered 1,600, of whom about 500 were girls, says Mr. Kirik. “Within these last three years, there has been quite a dramatic increase in female street children in Yogyakarta,” he says. “Many left their homes because they have conflicts with their families, like one of the girls under our care. She refused to marry a man whom her parents had chosen for her.”

STREET MOTHER: Many street girls are victims of sexual abuse and child prostitution.

Luckier Than Others

Eighteen-year-old Aminah knows what living on the streets is like. She spent most of her teenage years singing at intersections or selling newspapers in Yogyakarta. She says street life gave her freedom—and more than a few problems. Like many street kids, she started taking flu medicine, drinking vodka, and sniffing glue. “Glue sniffing is cheap, and I used to enjoy it,” she says.

Looking pale, but proudly clutching her one-month-old baby, she says she is now trying to turn her back on that life. She has married her boyfriend—who works as a bus conductor—and has been accepted back home by her parents.

Aminah is one of the luckier ones. Many of the other former street kids say it would be impossible for them to return to their villages and settle back into normal life. Instead, the kids have found proper jobs through the Ghifari shelter.

Mr. Kirik says that the girls are stigmatized because they have a reputation of being wild and sexually promiscuous. “Almost all female street children have been sexually abused by other street kids as part of an initiation process, and then later by local boys or men who take advantage of their vulnerability,” he says.

Ani, another girl staying at the Ghifari shelter, spent two years working and living on Yogyakarta’s street. Ani fled to the streets to escape her stepfather, who was beating and abusing her. “My mother was helpless and could not protect me,” she says.

Scheme to be Replicated

If successful, the Yogyakarta pilot scheme will be replicated in other urban centers. The scheme will establish counseling programs for female street children who are either at risk of, or who have experienced, sexual abuse; evaluate different approaches to prevention and rehabilitation; and develop culturally acceptable, cost-effective, and sustainable programs to help the Government, NGOs, and social workers address the needs of 34,000 female street children.

The executing agency will be the National Welfare Agency of the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare. NGOs will implement the Project, which is scheduled to be completed in December 2002.

Read more about the launching of the Japan Fund for Poverty Reduction

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