Family first for vulnerable children, no matter what
Should the state be responsible for taking care of children in vulnerable condition, orphaned or not? Many believe it has a duty in some cases, such as children who have been exposed to religious extremism and terrorism or even involved by militant parents in terrorist attacks.
The Indonesian government since June has taken under its care seven orphaned children whose parents were killed while carrying out terrorist attacks in Surabaya and preparing pipe bombs in a flat near the East Java provincial capital in May.
The Ministry of Social Affairs has put them in a government-run shelter as they undergo a rehabilitation process to counter the radical thinking inculcated by their militant parents. The ministry has provided care for 81 children who have been exposed to terrorism.
Social Affairs Minister Idrus Marham said the ministry, in cooperation with other bodies, such as the National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT), is still in the process of appraising the mood of its seven most recent charges following the life-changing events they went through.
“They are doing well so far. We are building back their confidence, assuring them that although they lost their parents, there are people who are taking care of them,” Marham told Asia Focus on July 16.
Those assigned to look after the children are also assessing their views and thoughts about religion as deradicalisation process is under way. He acknowledged that the process is slow but expressed confidence that it would succeed.
“I think the state should play a role here. It is even more pertinent for the state to do it because this is about ideology,” he said.
Among the seven is an eight-year-old girl who survived a suicide attack on May 14 at the Surabaya police headquarters. Her parents and two brothers were killed in the attack.
Three orphaned siblings in the group are children of Anton Febrianto, who was killed with his wife and their eldest child when the bombs they were preparing in the family’s flat in Sidoarjo blew up prematurely on May 13.
Another three siblings are the children of Dedy Sulistianto, an alleged militant and Anton’s younger brother, who was gunned down by police during a raid in Surabaya on May 15.
Police Brig Gen Hamidin, the BNPT deputy for international cooperation, said children involved in terrorism are also victims for having been exposed to radicalism or recruited by family members.
“We have to take them under the government’s foster-care programme that focuses on countering radicalism,” he told Asia Focus.
The programme uses different approaches, Hamidin said, without going into details. But in some cases, next of kin or remaining family members are involved while government monitoring and assistance continue.
“Sometimes it is not that easy to return them to their families. But of course family members can come to visit; they have the right to do that,” he added.
Child rights activists said the tide has turned from institutionalised child care, with a consensus that family-based care should be the main option for vulnerable or disadvantaged children, whether they are tied to terrorism or not.
“Institutionalised child care should be the last resort,” said Yanto Mulya Pibiwanto, head of the national forum for institutional child care, at a gathering of child-care professionals from across the country last Tuesday in Bandung, West Java.
There are about 5,500 child-care institutions in Indonesia and many have to take in children sent to them by parents or remaining family members.
A study conducted in 2006-07 by Save the Children and the Social Affairs Ministry on the quality of institutional child care in six provinces showed that 90% of children living in institutions were not orphaned but had been sent there by their parents, who hoped they would get a better education.
However, it is not that easy to return such children to their parents, acknowledged Jasra Putra, a member of the Indonesian Child Protection Commission. The process requires a careful assessment of the child’s origin, the family’s readiness to accept him or her back, and constant monitoring.
Such challenges, however, have not deterred a social worker in Yangon in his efforts to reintegrate institutionalised children in Myanmar with their families.
Joney Thawng Hup, the general manager of Kinnected Myanmar, maintains that family reintegration is always in the best interests of the children.
Kinnected Myanmar links a network of 13 institutions caring for 237 children. So far it has been successful in reuniting 20 children with their families after they were sent to spend a summer with them.
The children were among 60 who voluntarily took part in the programme, while the other 40 opted to return to the institutions.
But returning children without a plan to support the impoverished families would just put the children in a high-risk situation, said Thawng, who is also an evangelist. Support to empower the families and provide them with a way to earn a steady income is crucial.
“We believe that families are the best place for children to grow,” he told a group of journalists who participated in a Thomson Reuters Foundation reporting workshop on caring for vulnerable children held in Bangkok in June.
Thawng himself still runs an orphanage, which he plans to use for community purposes when all its residents are reunited with their families. It is one of the 227 orphanages registered under the social welfare department of Myanmar, where he said about 75% of children in the institution system still have parents and other living relatives.
He acknowledges that many of his fellow orphanage directors don’t share his view but that doesn’t stop him.
Many of the children are “educational refugees” or those left at the orphanages so they could have access to schooling, which their poor parents could not provide.
But getting educated while enduring time away from their parents and families did not always work out well for the children, Thawng said.
There are cases when the educated child, who grew up in an institution, turned out to have less self-confidence that siblings who stayed with their parents but were not educated.
“Orphanages, no matter how much they can provide for the children, cannot give children the compassion, nurturing and human touch that they need while growing up,” he said.