TSUNAMI IMPACT: Aceh Children Becoming Vulnerable to Traffickers

TSUNAMI IMPACT: Aceh Children Becoming Vulnerable to Traffickers
By Richel Dursin

JAKARTA, Jan 5 (IPS) - Some call it a ''philanthropic act'', others a ''big blunder'' when Indonesia's First Lady Kristiani Herawati Yudhoyono publicly expressed her intention to adopt a 13-year-old Acehnese boy whose parents were swept away by the tsunami that devastated Asia, a day after Christmas.

A footage taken by a private television station last Monday showed the wife of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono saying she wanted to adopt Mirwanda and send him to a school in Jakarta.

''I will finance his education,'' Ani Yudhoyohono, as she is affectionately called, said in a televised interview over 'Metro TV', while stroking the hair of Mirwanda, a first year high school student who survived the tsunami disaster by running to a hill near his house in Aceh, which was the near the epicenter of the quake.

Upon watching the news report, Mirwanda's elder sister, Aida, broke in tears and pleaded with the president's wife to immediately return her brother to her in Banda Aceh, the provincial capital.

''Please give me back my brother. He is the only one I have now. I will act as his mother and find my way to send him to school,'' begged Aida, a domestic housekeeper.

Presidential spokesperson Andi Mallarangeng went into damage control when he saw the distressed Aida on television. He said the boy had been handed over, in neighbouring North Sumatra's capital Medan, to a person in a refugee camp who claimed to be his neighbour.

''The plan by the president's wife to adopt Mirwanda did not materialise because the boy refused,'' said Mallarangeng, adding that the president's entourage took the Acehnese tsunami survivor to Medan - which serves as a transit relief center for refugees fleeing Aceh province.

As it turned out, the act of the First Lady, who has two grown-up sons, drew more flak than praise from ordinary citizens, who expressed concern that Acehnese children are falling prey to child trafficking rings.

''Why was the boy taken out from Aceh and just given to somebody who claimed to be his neighbour?'' asked Vincentius, a viewer in Jakarta.

Added university student Graesiana: ''What if the boy has fallen victim to a child trafficker?''

Indonesia is both a receiving site and a sending area overseas for trafficked children.

Each year in Indonesia, some 100,000 children and women are trafficked due to various factors including poverty, lack of economic opportunities for young people, high demand for commercial sex, cheap labor, weak law enforcement and corruption, according to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).

''In tumultuous environments like those in the tsunami zone - where families are broken apart - children are more vulnerable,'' said UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy.

''In some of the affected countries, reports have been emerging of opportunistic child traffickers moving in to exploit vulnerable children,'' she added.

In Banda Aceh, several refugees reported that some people have approached survivors of the tsunami disaster and asked about children who lost their parents when the Dec. 26 undersea quake-triggered killer waves struck. The death toll at Aceh and northern Sumatra stands at 94,000, the highest in Asia, but officials expect it to rise.

According to relief agencies, between 100,000 and 300,000 Acehnese children, who survived the tsunami disaster, are either orphaned or separated from their parents and other family members in the province.

''Some people came to see us and wanted to buy kids who no longer had any parents. They told us they will bring the children to Jakarta and sell them,'' said Juliana Zakariah, a refugee in Banda Aceh.

Zakariah pointed out that she saw the people who wanted to buy children taking a ''young girl with a curly hair''.

The non-governmental Medan-based Aceh Sepakat Foundation disclosed that at least 20 Acehnese children are believed to have been smuggled out of Aceh after the tsunami devastated the province.

The foundation executive officer Masriza said he was informed that a group based in Medan transported the 20 orphans to Bandung in West Java and neighbouring Malaysia.

''Babies and children below 15 are usually the targets of child traffickers, Masriza told IPS.

To avert child trafficking, Vice President Yusuf Kalla issued an order on Monday banning Acehnese children from leaving the tsunami-stricken province unless permitted by their parents or immediate family members.

However, child activists criticised the order not to take out Acehnese children from the province.

''Acehnese children should be allowed to leave the province because the place is not favourable to their mental and emotional development,'' said Seto Mulyadi, chairman of National Commission on Child Protection.

The government has also issued a regulation banning Acehnese children below the age of 16 from leaving Indonesia and imposed a temporary ban on their adoption.

A number of people in Jakarta have expressed their desire to become foster parents to Acehnese orphans and trooped to the office of the Council of Indonesian Ulemas (MUI), which supports the adoption of children from the province.

The MUI has made it known that parents who want to adopt should be economically stable and have the same religion as the child.

According to Makmur Sunusi, director for child protection at the Ministry of Social Affairs, adoption is only allowed when it can be verified that both parents and other immediate relatives of the child have been killed in the tsunami disaster.

''Acehnese children who lost their parents, but still have their siblings cannot be adopted like in the case of the boy whom the First Lady wanted to adopt,'' Sunusi said.

Sunusi stressed that Acehnese residents should be given priority to adopt orphans from their province in order to preserve the emotional and cultural ties between them.

As for Mirwanda, 'Metro TV' looked for him in all the refugee camps in Medan immediately after it was revealed that he was in north Sumatra. But he was only found a week later, on the evening of Jan. 3.

Mirwanda, who complained of dizziness and nausea, was discovered staying with 14 other Acehnese children in the house of a sub-district head in Medan.

''Please come home. Tell the 'Metro TV' crew to bring you back to Aceh,'' Aida told her brother, who replied that he will return as soon as he is well. (END/2005)

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