Cement-Spattered School Uniform

KOMPAS/FRANSISKUS PATI HERIN

Rio (13), a student from a junior high school in North Central Timor Regency, became a construction worker in Kupang City, East Nusa Tenggara, on  When working he wears scout uniform pants.

Using all his strength, Rio (13) lifted a sack of cement and poured its contents onto a pile of sand and gravel. Every day, the junior high school student carries out this heavy work, which should not be done by children.

Rio, who weighs around 35 kilograms and is around 130 centimeters tall, pushed his body hard as he worked at a construction site in Kupang, the provincial capital of East Nusa Tenggara.

When Kompas met him on Thursday (16/9/2021), Rio said he had run away from his village in North Central Timor regency, around 155 kilometers from Kupang. One day two weeks ago, without his parents’ knowledge, he had boarded a bus in the early hours, armed with two sets of shirts and pants. One set was his scouts uniform, now spattered with cement.

He had taken up an offer from Klemens (17), a ninth grader in his village. Before leaving, they already knew that they were going to become construction workers in Kupang and build walls at a housing development.

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They must finish the work within one month to meet the developer\'s target. This means they cannot attend the online schooling. They have no cellphone and no time. They work from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.

According to the agreement, they will each be paid Rp 1 million. The developer will cover their meals.

"After this job, we will go straight home and continue school," Rio said.

Klemens added that he was annoyed with his school, which collected Rp 200,000 in “committee fees” from each student every month. In fact, in-class learning takes place only once per week. The rest of the school week involves learning at home under parental supervision.

“As a matter of fact, we go to a public school. My mother complains that she can\'t pay the school fees, so I work [to make] money,” said Klemens.

KOMPAS/FRANSISKUS PATI HERIN

Rio (13), a junior high school student,  while working as a construction worker on Thursday (16/9/2021).

Both boys’ fathers are migrant workers in Malaysia.

Their schools know where Rio and Klemens have been over the past two weeks. The school and their families have asked them to come home, but the two boys refused. They will go home after they have finished the work and pocketed Rp 1 million.

During their time working in construction, the boys have changed a lot. Their faces are sunburnt. Their bodies are thinner. They have also started smoking. Every day, they smoked at least four cigarettes each. They frequently coughed while shoveling cement.

Backbone of the family

I use the money to buy rice, sugar and cooking oil, then I send them to my mother in the village.

Rio and Klemens are not the only ones involved in child labor in Kupang. Many children sell young coconuts on Jl. Polisi Militer. Aleks (13) is one of these children.

Every weekend, he earns up to Rp 1 million. With each coconut selling for Rp 6,000, this means that Aleks removes the husks from around 167 coconuts per day. Aleks earns Rp 500 per coconut.

"I use the money to buy rice, sugar and cooking oil, then I send them to my mother in the village," said Aleks, who is now the backbone of the family after his father remarried, abandoning him and his mother.

During the pandemic, Aleks decided to temporarily stop participating in the activities at his junior high school in South Central Timor regency. He decided to head to Kupang and make some money to help his mother.

KOMPAS/FRANSISKUS PATI HERIN

Schoolchildren selling young coconuts in Kupang City, East Nusa Tenggara, on Friday (17/9/2021). They take advantage of their free time during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Tory Ata from the NTT Child Protection Institute said that many children worked to earn money during the pandemic. In addition to working in construction and selling coconuts, other children worked as hawkers or sold newspapers at road junctions. No data exists on the exact number of child workers.

According to Tory, children who are earning an income have gotten used to their new life, so it was difficult to bring them back to the classroom. The situation has increased the number of school dropouts in the province. In 2019 alone, before the pandemic, there were 111,000 school dropouts in NTT.

In terms of health, the physical and mental development of unskilled child workers are affected. Picking up bad habits like smoking and drinking alcohol makes them vulnerable to various diseases.

Based on the official figures published on 15 Feb. 2021 on NTT Central Statistics Agency website, the province recorded a year-on-year increase of 44,070 poor people in September 2020 from September 2019. The province now has a total of 1.17 million poor people and ranks third among the poorest provinces in Indonesia.

Increasing poverty is one of the impacts of the pandemic that has been felt across the archipelago. Especially in poor regions like NTT, children from underprivileged families have been hard hit. It will take genuine concern and measures from the government and the general public to lift children like Rio, Klemens and Aleks from poverty. Fulfilling children\'s rights, including the right to education and protection, will help to break the cycle of poverty more easily.

This article was translated by Kurniawan Siswoko.