- VIVAnews/ Muhamad Solihin
VIVAnews - Nearly 50 million kids in Indonesia have yet to get birth certificate, listing Indonesia as the nation with the lowest rate of birth registration worldwide. Up until today, most of children under five years of age are not yet officially registered.
Based on data from the National Commission for Protecting Children (Komnas PA), 32,000 children delivered by Indonesian migrant workers in Malaysia do not yet have birth certificate.
"Legally speaking, millions of Indonesian children are not acknowledged as citizens. As a result, those kids won't be able to get proper treatments from the government," said Komnas PA Secretary General, Samsul Ridwan, today.
Based on data of the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) in 2010, the number of children aged between 0-18 years reaches 79,729,824, 45 percent of which have been issued birth certificates.
"It means that 55 percent of kids in Indonesia are not yet recognized [by the government]," he said.
Samsul said kids with no birth certificates are prone to sexual abuse and exploitation.
In the Indonesia's border provinces, the State plays quite a weak role in legally conceding civil rights and freedom.
"Most high-school students living in three subdistricts in Malinau Regency of East Kalimantan, which is directly neighboring Malaysia, have instead been given out birth certificate by the Malaysian government instead," Samsul said.
Their parents are mostly migrant workers working in oil palm plantations in Sabah and Sarawak, Malaysia.
"The State has violated kids's rights to be legally recognized as citizes having civil rights and freedom," he said.
