Slum Conditions In Jakarta

Slum dwellers are a growing group of urban poor who have little or no access to affordable healthcare, education or economic opportunities. They usually do informal work, and as a result, they are highly vulnerable to disasters - mostly flooding and fire - that occur regularly.

In contrast with the bright skyscrapers and designer boutiques of central Jakarta, slums are dense neighbourhoods, usually illegal and mostly filled with makeshift shelters. Few know how many slums there are in the city of over 10 million people.

Mercy Corps, an aid agency that has been working with the urban poor since 1999, says fewer than 50 percent of Jakarta's residents have access to tap water, and the poorest urban residents pay more for basic services like clean water, sanitation and solid waste removal.

"Over 200,000 to 300,000 people come to Jakarta every year to look for opportunities," says Charles Ham, country director for Hope Worldwide Indonesia, a non-government organisation (NGO) working in Cilincing since September 2007. "They are unwanted residents of the city."

Most dwellings in the slum are rickety huts. There are a few brick houses and even a couple of two-storey ones, but all that flies high in this slum are flags from political parties jostling for votes in the upcoming election.

Children play barefoot beside drains full of murky-green stagnant water, families cook evening meals on the streets and goats forage on top of massive garbage dumps.

"People only eat twice a day here," Selamat says. And at least 10 percent of children in his neighbourhood are malnourished.

As Indonesia continues to urbanise at a rapid rate, more and more slums like this will emerge. According to the U.N. Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT), there were nearly 21 million slum residents in Indonesia in 2001 - 23 percent of the total urban population.

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