Child trafficking risk for Indonesia’s unregistered children

They’re an essential document taken for granted in many parts of the world, but most Indonesian children don’t have a birth certificate – a disadvantage as aid agencies warn it puts them at higher risk of child trafficking.

With 60 per cent of the country’s under five-year-olds not officially registered, Indonesia ranks among the bottom 20 nations worldwide in child registration, according to Unicef. And children living in Indonesia’s rural areas are even less likely to have a birth certificate.

One of the main factors is a lack of awareness and information, but other obstacles such as the cost of transport and the lack of some supporting documents including birth identification letters and marriage licenses, also play a part.

As well as being an official recognition of a child - without which a child can’t go to school - birth certificates are a crucial form of child protection. Without proof of their birth, these children are targets for exploitation, including trafficking. Birth certificates make it possible to enforce laws about fair working rights and to bring trafficked children home from abroad.

Each year, 80,000 to 100,000 women and children are victims of sexual exploitation or have been trafficked because they haven’t got a birth certificate. Many are sent to Malaysia and the Middle East, while others are sent to Jakarta or Kalimantan in Borneo, according to UNCEF figures. Child prostitution is also on the rise in Indonesia, with one-third of sex workers under 18.

"I know about child trafficking, I saw it on television," Kusuma Susaut, walking around the neighbourhood with her two-month-old baby boy in a sling told a local news service. "We just don't have the money right now." And her case is not the exception. Some 100 million Indonesians live on less than $2 a day. It is one of the poorest countries in Southeast Asia, and 2008 figures from the Indonesian Statistics Bureau show almost ten million unemployed.

All newborns must be given free birth certificates, according to Indonesia’s child protection policy, but registrations have only risen by two per cent since that law was adopted in 2002. But the government is still working to turn things around and in December announced a new strategy aimed at registering all children by 2011.