Numerous women and infants are being used in Indonesia's years-old streetside business. That venture even constitutes these women and babies being drugged to keep them quiet.
The business, which is masterminded by criminal syndicates, is aimed primarily to motorists, who at rush hour require at least two passengers to enter main roads as dictated by the country's law. Those motorists use "jockeys," which are usually poor young women with an infant. In exchange for a small amount of money, they act as passengers-for-hire, Yahoo! News reported from the AFP.
Police Action
Police in South Jakarta arrested four adults after months of investigation. Authorities believe that those people were renting out children as beggars or child jockeys for 200,000 rupiah (USD$15) each day. After the crackdown, two children aged seven and five years old, along with a six-month-old baby, were taken into protective care.
Deputy head of South Jakarta police Surawan said information from one of those arrested led them to three women believed to be running a syndicate selling children for exploitation. Those women are also in the authorities' custody now.
Risma, a jockey roaming a major roadway in South Jakarta with her three-year-old son, said she uses her child on the streets because "people sympathize easily with you if you've got a baby," AFP further reported. Police also confirmed in March that families rented out majority of the child jockeys in Jakarta's streets to criminal syndicates.
Drugged Children & Women
The drugged baby rescued by police officials was found unresponsive due to Clonazepam, a strong sedative used to treat anxiety in adults. Audie Latuheru, the head of criminal investigation at the police department, said the drug, which was bought from the pharmacy without prescription, was administered to the child in order to make it peaceful and compliant while waiting for long hours on the streets.
A crying baby in the car isn't an ideal situation for paying drivers. People in Jakarta are angry over the streetside business of syndicates. Police, however, revealed they have long known about the exploitation rackets, but they are unable to prove it.
"We have always known that many of those street kids, beggars and child jockeys might have been rented or sold, but it's hard for us to prove," Surawan said, as quoted by AFP. "What can we do? Conduct a DNA test every time we see a beggar or a jockey with a baby?"
Asking for identification is hard as well, given that many people in Indonesia are not officially registered in the system. Aside from the streetside business, around 35,000 young people in the country are also involved in other forms of exploitation like prostitution and begging scams.
