by ALEXANDRA DI STEFANO PIRONTI
Rising numbers of Indonesians are unable to grow out of homes such as this one on the riverbank of Ciliwung in South Jakarta. PHOTO/Alexandra Di Stefano Pironti/IPS.
JAKARTA, Jun 29 2012 (IPS) – If in the words of Gandhi ”poverty is the worst form of violence,” then the Indonesian government is accountable to some 120 million citizens who live on less than two dollars a day.
Living without basic necessities like clean water, proper nutrition, healthcare, education, clothing and shelter, 29-year-old Parwan fits the dictionary definition of absolute poverty. But not that of the Indonesian government, which sets the poverty line at 7,800 rupiah (about 86 U.S. cents) per day – less than half that of the World Bank, which defines poverty in Indonesia as living on less than two dollars a day.
In the south Jakarta slum of Ciliwung that stretches along a fetid river bank, Parwan survives in a one-room shack shared with his wife and baby girl. He supports his family on a little more than 700,000 rupiah a month (75 dollars) which places him just above the government’s poverty line.
But he and tens of millions like him – in a country of 240 million which boasts Southeast Asia’s largest and fastest growing economy – are unlikely to get a helping hand from authorities who do not even acknowledge their poverty.
“Our National Poverty line since September 2011 is 243,729 rupiah per capita per month (25.76 dollars or 0.86 cents a day),” welfare ministry spokesman Tito Setiavan told IPS.
That neat bit of arithmetic has wiped out tens of millions of poor from the slate: according to government statistics from September 2011 about 30 million people – or 12 percent of the population – lives below the poverty line. The World Bank contends that half the population lives on less than two dollars a day, in line with the Asian Development Bank.
Binny Buchori, senior adviser for The Centre for Welfare Studies in Indonesia, told IPS that frequent government claims that poverty is in decline does not take into account people living on the very margins of the poverty line.
“Whenever prices rise many more people fall in the category of the poor,” said Buchori.
Inter Press Service for more