Orphans left in the dark

Data issue hinders govt help for kids who lost parents to pandemic

LAST December, 17-year-old Ragil in South Tangerang, Banten, lost his father to Covid-19 just months after his mother died of breast cancer. Now he is under the care of his two older brothers, both undergraduate students.

“I was worried about whether my brother could continue his education because the money my father left behind was not that much,” Ragil’s older brother Hakim said.

Hakim remained thankful that the brothers could still live off their father’s pension fund and occasional donations from neighbours, relatives and friends of their father.

Ragil is among many Indonesian children who have lost their parents to Covid-19. Another is 10-yearold Vino from East Kalimantan, who attracted national attention.

Vino, who contracted the virus, went into home isolation alone after his pregnant mother died of Covid-19 on July 19 and his father the day after.

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo gave Vino cash and a bicycle – his trademark gift for children – after the case went viral

While some Covid-19 orphans can rely on relatives, it is feared that many others have no one to look after them and miss out on government help due to a lack of data.

Citing data from the national Covid-19 task force, Social Affairs Minister Tri “Risma” Rismaharini said 11,045 children had been orphaned by the virus as of July 20.

But the ministry’s director for child social rehabilitation Kanya Eka Santi said that was only an estimate, calculated from the number of people who had died from Covid19 aged 19 to 45 because they may have left children behind.

As public pressure mounts, the ministry last Sunday instructed all provincial administrations to speed up data collection on orphaned children aged 17 and below.

But Kanya said only two provinces had reported back so far: East Java and Yogyakarta.

Using the data from the local administrations, social workers stationed in East Java under the ministry’s supervision have so far managed to verify the identities of and give aid to 5,000 orphaned children, while workers in Yogyakarta have reached out to over 350 children.

Save the Children Indonesia office deputy chief for policy Tata Sudrajat said cases of orphaned children were under-reported, particularly since the Delta-fuelled second wave of infections began.

He estimated that close to 17,000 children nationwide had lost one or both parents to the virus.

Risma said orphans who had been identified by the Social Affairs Ministry would get immediate help through the Social Rehabilitation Assistance Programme.

Some local administrations are also taking the initiative to help children orphaned by the pandemic.

Civil society groups are also picking up the slack. Save the Children provides food and psychosocial support for such orphans, while a volunteer group runs the online fundraising platform Kawal Masa Depan for orphans, who can sign up on their website to receive donations.