Specifically, it asks: What factors led Indonesia to adopt a policy during the 2000s to reduce reliance on a type of institution for children known as panti asuhan. Second, in the mid-2000s, a 'status quo' discourse coalition that supported panti asuhan opposed potential policy change.
CONTEXT, LITERATURES, AIMS AND METHOD
Context and overview
- Children living without parental care
- Purpose and central argument
- Structure
The plight of children living in institutions in the South and the former Eastern Bloc has come under increasing public, governmental and academic interest in recent decades. In contrast, and as discussed in Chapter 2, relatively little effort has been made to date to examine policy making on the deinstitutionalization of children's institutions in the Global South.
Literature review
- Definitions
- Deinstitutionalisation: the former Eastern Bloc and the Global South
- Deinstitutionalisation: the Global North
- Implications for research, policy and practice
- Conclusions
Another body of recent literature on children's institutions in former Eastern Bloc and Global South countries relates to deinstitutionalization policymaking. While there are significant limitations in the literature on deinstitutionalization policy-making in former Eastern Bloc countries, there is even less knowledge on policy-making on deinstitutionalization of children's institutions in the Global South.
Aims and methodology
- Introduction
- Social constructionism and discourse analysis
- Principal research question and techniques
- Boundaries
- Conclusions
Identifying storylines and how they constituted discourse coalitions was, for Hajer, only part of the story. Hajer's methodology is particularly relevant in addressing the overarching research of this dissertation, that is, to contribute to the understanding of why and under what conditions, policy-making to deinstitutionalize children occurs especially in countries of the Global South.
POLICY MEANINGS: SCENE-SETTING AND STORY LINES IN
The panti asuhan policy change story
- Indonesia: an overview of recent developments
- Panti asuhan: key characteristics and research
- The new panti asuhan policy and its depiction
- Conclusions
In particular, it describes the standard, public narrative about panti asuhan policy change as presented by the Indonesian government and some international players, namely, that the new policy is primarily designed to fulfill Indonesia's international obligations on children's rights under UN Convention on Rights. of the Child. However, within Indonesia, the new policy placed panti asuhan at the center of policy implementation activities. The exact number of panti asuhan is unknown, a matter discussed further in Chapter 8.
At least in relation to the three orphanages studied, it appeared that the panti asuhan was seen by families of children and. Note, UNICEF Indonesia et al. 2012, p. 170) found that most of the children in the panti asuhan had at least one living parent, and that. It will be remembered from Chapter 1 that the new policy on panti asuhan was seen by UNICEF and Save the Children as an example of de-institutionalisation of policy-making in the Global South.
Despite unpublished Indonesian government figures (discussed in Chapter 8) revealing that the number of children in panti asuhan continued to rise steadily during the second half of the 2000s, the Indonesian government (cited in the UN Committee on Children's Rights 2012, p. 22) even claimed that she. However, this meant that the large number of panti asuhan who did not receive subsidies were not obliged to comply with or be part of the new policy arrangements (as discussed in Chapters 8 and 9, not all panti asuhan receive government subsidies, and many operate with funding from their parent organization or other sources such as donations). Furthermore, the national government's decisions to continue using panti asuhan as the focal point for the implementation of the new policy differed from the views expressed by Save the Children.
Field research and main story lines
- The case study: a preview
- Interview selection
- Main story lines: a synopsis
- Conclusions
These interviews allowed me to gain a general understanding of the role of the panti asuhan and the factors that may have been at play in the change process. I also visited a national government-run panti asuhan in Bandung (West Java), accompanied by the Ministry of Social Affairs. During this visit, a telephone interview was also conducted with a former employee of an INGO (then resident outside Indonesia) who had been closely associated with the Indonesian government's policy change regarding panti asuhan.
In August 2014, a further interview was conducted in Canberra with a staff member of an Indonesian national NGO who had closely observed the panti asuhan policy development process. Being able to interview senior government officials, particularly in the Ministry of Social Affairs, who had been directly involved in developing, recommending and implementing the policy change at panti asuhan meant that first-hand access was gained to those most directly involved in the policy change process (apart from the Minister of Social Affairs at the time for the policy change, Bachtiar Chamsyah, who was later jailed for corruption). I interviewed senior INGO representatives who had researched panti asuhan as part of an advocacy campaign to get the Indonesian government to change its policy on children's institutions.
On the other hand, what I call the "status quo" approach considered panti asuhan useful and policy change largely unnecessary. Key Narratives of panta asuhan Key Narratives (and the parts of this study to which they relate). Based on interviews with key policymakers, advocates, and others, he predicted the finding that policymakers, policy advocates, and others have two basic stories about panta asuhan.
The ‘pro-reform’ story line (i): international factors
- Findings from the field
- Analysis and discussion
- Conclusions
The second step was the Child Protection Act of 2002, which largely referred to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Three of the four main principles of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child were incorporated into the constitution, except for the one on the rights of the child. In 2005, the Indonesian government (listed in UN Committee on the Rights of the Child 2012) notified the UN that it had withdrawn its seven reservations to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Each signatory's report is then subject to review and a report by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (as mentioned earlier, the Committee consists of 18 independent experts who monitor and report to the UN on the implementation of the Convention of the UN on the Rights of the Child). Indonesia's first report, in 1992, on the country's compliance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child showed that, despite the Convention's opposition to. Indonesia's obligations to children under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, as well as a number of other international human rights principles.
In 2001, Indonesia signed the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography. In 2002, Indonesia submitted its second periodic report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child 2003). These findings led the Save the Children-led team to conclude that the situation for children in Acehnese institutions was contrary to the principles of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The ‘pro-reform’ story line (ii): new policy directions
- Findings from the field
- Analysis and discussion
- Conclusions
Interviewee UNA-13, a senior UN official, reflected on the changes in bureaucratic arrangements in national government that in the early 2000s gave the Ministry of National Development Planning new and expanded powers to coordinate policy across government departments, leading to an expansion of government focus to child welfare issues. Indonesians are very proud of Indonesia's place in the world and its place in Asia. It is the fastest growing economy in the region, the sixteenth largest economy in the world and a middle income economy.
After a brief review of economic and social policies under Suharto, it focuses on changes in national policies in response to the Asian financial crisis and Suharto's decline in the areas of poverty alleviation, family strengthening, and decentralization, which also affected the dynamics of panti asuhan policy change. The national government also cut the politically sensitive fuel subsidy several times in the early 2000s, with the savings being redirected by the government to another new social security and poverty reduction initiative, the Fuel Subsidy Reduction Compensation Scheme. The relationship between the compensation scheme for reduction of fuel subsidy and growth in the number of panti asuhan is discussed in Chapter 8).
Finally, there is evidence to support the claim that Indonesia's decentralization policies also accelerated panti asuhan policy change in the early to mid-2000s. Numerous attempts have been made in Indonesia, even in the Dutch colonial era, to decentralize some powers from the national level to the sub-national level. Similarly, Booth (2005) noted the slowness with which national government departments relinquished budgets to subnational levels.
The ‘pro-reform’ story line (iii): escalating costs
- Findings from the field
- Analysis and discussion
- Conclusions
When asked about the role of the national government fuel subsidy reduction compensation scheme in supporting panti asuhan] Yes, you are right. The problem was that between 1979 and 1997, the number of panti asuhan did not grow much. The extent to which panti asuhan takes advantage of the fuel subsidy cut was examined in Save the Children's reports on panti asuhan in 2006 and 2007.
Appendix E details the location by province and the amount of fuel subsidy reduction compensation provided to panti asuhan for 2007. The second major source of national government financial encouragement to panti asuhan during the early Reformasi period was the fuel subsidy reduction compensation scheme. Fuel subsidy reduction compensation was provided to any panti asuhan who registered to receive it.
The fuel subsidy reduction for panti asuhan was calculated annually by the Ministry of Social Welfare on the basis of a subsidy amount per child. Most of the panti asuhan in the sample group received a fuel subsidy reduction for 30 children, although this was not a hard and fast rule. The extent of national government subsidization of panti asuhan in the early Reformasi period was also revealed in Save the Children UK et al.
The ‘status quo’ story line: ‘the friend of orphans’
- Findings from the field
- Analysis and discussion
- Conclusions
Muhammadiyah's strong claim that their panti asuhan had supported poor families in the absence of major national government support over many decades. After Independence in 1945 there was an increase in the number of panti asuhans who cared not only for orphans but also for children of poor families. After the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, no one tried to make a comparison between panti asuhan and family approaches.
The issue of panti asuhan was on the agenda of the Muhammadiyah National Congress in 1999. Even if there was an increase in the total amount of charity zakāt donation, the ratio directed to panti asuhan is unknown. For Skavelden, there were several characteristics of panti asuhan that differed from children's institutions in the Global North.
This meant that panti asuhan did not function as 'total institutions' in the same sense that Goffman described as many institutions in the Global North (see Chapter 2). As discussed in Chapter 8, there was a rapid increase in the number of panti asuhan and children in them during the 1990s, the last decade of the New Order. However, altruistic concern for vulnerable children was only part of the appeal of panti asuhan to the Suharto family and their associates.
MAKING POLICY, CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS
From story lines to discourse institutionalisation
- Identifying a ‘discursive order’
- Three phases of panti asuhan policymaking
- Conclusions
Conclusions and implications for practice and research
- A triumph for children’s rights or ‘old wine in new bottles’?
- Practice implications for policymakers and advocates
- Contributions to research
