The essence of their problem is not poverty, but also exploitation, manipulation, inconsistency toward the ways of help either by themselves or others who pay attention to street children.
Street children have recently become a very important social phenomenon in the life of big cities. Their presence is often regarded as a mirror of urban poverty, or a failure of the group's adaptation to the dynamic life of a large city.
Understanding the characteristics of their lives, what their activities and aspirations are, the connections with parties and people around them, enables us to put them wisely in the context of the problems of urban life.
Since the 1998 crisis, street children's activities in Indonesia have been increasing, starting in the square, theaters, highways, street intersections, railway stations, terminals, markets, shops and malls. Now, the figure of children in Indonesia appear in an increasingly unhappy life. The condition of children getting worse can be seen from the physical appearance only.
Who are the street kids? Street children are immature people (physically and phsykis) who spend most of their time on the streets by engaging in activities to earn money to sustain life that sometimes gets physical or mental stress from their surroundings.
Generally they come from families with weak economies. Street children grow and develop with the background of street life and familiar with poverty, persecution, and the loss of affection, so burdensome soul and make it behave negatively.
Cases of violence (physical, psychological, or sexual) experienced by street children to be revealed to the public are just an "iceberg phenomenon" of violent cases that often occur in the lives of street children. Therefore, it is not excessive to say that street children are always in a situation that threatens their physical, mental and social development and even their lives.
In situations of violence faced continuously in the course of his life, then the lesson that is inherent in street children and form their personality. When they grow up, they are likely to become one of the perpetrators of violence.
Without any effort, we have participated in making the children endless victims. Removing the above stigmatization becomes very important. Actually, street children are just victims of family conflicts, street communities, and victims of economic policies that are not able to take care of the people.
For that campaign, the protection of street children needs to be done continuously at least to encourage parties outside street children to stop violence against street children.
With sufficient education and debriefing, street children also have the potential in life because by living their street becomes "street smart". To be sure, let us pray that these children do not end up being abject creatures like some of our recent DPR members who usually just misuse the people's mandate, steal people's money, and oppress the people (his own election).
These creatures do not have any skills, not even a boro-boro "street smart" they can only think "what can I skip today?" while still appear cengengesan in the media. Boro-boro remember the mandate, the promise itself is openly spoken no ga will remember.
People are harmed but we are also wondering, about how torment will they receive from the power of the day of the end? Street Children Empowerment Actually no different from other children, they also have potential and talent.
In such childhood the brain that contains 100-200 billion brain cells is ready to be developed and actualized to reach the highest potential development.
We have completely fortten the right of the children to play, to go to school, and to live as the other children do. They are forced by parents to feel the bitterness of life. They grow and evolve with the background of street life and are familiar with poverty, persecution, and the loss of affection, thus incriminating the soul and making it behave negatively.
This writing is dedicated to street children, as well as to campaign for the growth of community empathy for street children in order to have concrete engagement.