day four: accidental meeting with deden and the KAP gang
i headed back to platform3 after the meeting with the salvation army as i had met deden who does yoga every friday afternoon with the ibu ibu of the area where platform3 is located. deden is a chirpy fellow who is highly enthusiastic about his role as a freelance theatre practitioner. Since heru was also in the space, he explained to deden my research in bandung. deden excitedly told me that I am neighbours with an NGO that works primarily with youths at risk and underaged sex workers. he said i should come by in the afternoon to meet the head of KAP (Konfederasi Anti Pemiskinan) and the volunteers to share with them my research and current project at Platform3.
we loosely schedule the time, at 3pm and deden came on time to get the place ready for yoga. However, as a side note i have learnt that in bandung, time is as flexible as a rubber band and 3pm usually meant 4pm or 5pm. deden mopped up the place and brought me to KAP’s office which is literally next to platform3. I was greeted warmly by chimot, nani and three other volunteers. A big sized serious looking man with a strong presence sat at the main table and he introduced himself as Pak Bambang. They asked me about my project here and told me that as an NGO they have experienced and assisted children who were involved in child prostitution to rehabilitate back into the community and leave the trade behind. However, they are now more focused on children who are born and living in poverty and according to experience, children who were born from mothers who themselves work in nightclubs or social escorts have the same tendencies to follow in their mother’s footsteps. KAP, similar to rumah cemara, focus mainly on inclusivity and how these youths can put their attention and efforts on other things such as film-making, cooking, writing and photography. however all of them agreed that even with these choices, they have a high tendency to end up committing vices as the family influence is stronger than the external influences.
i told him about my experience in rumah cemara the day before, on how efa refused to create a fake birth certificate for her daughter simply because she did not wish to add another lie for her, which in the end she would have to confess to her daughter when the time is right. Pak Bambang corrected my findings and told me that the government has already allowed for children born out of wedlock to have legal birth certificates even if there is no fathers’ name in the certificates. however, he said, its really a cultural issue and mothers or families of these children, usually refused as it might it harder for them to progress in life. i could only laugh at the irony and told pak bambang that the worst kind of pressure in society is the cultural pressures to which pak bambang agreed. Chimot mentioned that I should engage in the kids that is under her care and also with Kak widya’s kids who might have experienced this themselves as an observer or know a family member who might have gone through this before.
they told me that i could meet the children on sunday morning as they are having a series of activities for them. chimot also added that it will be great if i could include their participation in my work. however i told chimot that at this moment, i do not wish to impose my methodology on the children especially since they are teenagers and it might be difficult for them to verbalise, let alone participate in such an emotionally-charged workshop. however, i told her it will be great for me to meet them and get to know them first. that itself is enough for me to craft out my own impressions about the situation without being to forthcoming. i told pak bambang and the rest that the past four days, the reactions upon hearing this project have been pretty negative from people who ironically is not directly/indirectly involved in the invisible community of people born out of wedlock but for those in a reversed position have been open to share their thoughts regarding the matter.
chimot also told me that the children under her care is creating a documentary on how youths entertained themselves (nongkrong) and it will be great if i can give my input. i told her it will be a great pleasure for me to assist in any way i can. Pak bambang went on to tell me more about the ngo in bandung or indonesia as a whole. when i asked if KAP receives government support, he started to laugh heartily. “of course not because if we do so we can’t call them gobloks (idiots)”. i am very much familiar with the notions of help=control by government bodies. another reason is, according to pak bambang, government officials uses NGOs to clean money as they will write on record that they give 10,000 dollars to this particular NGO but only disseminate 5,000 whereas using the rest of the 5,000 for something else. “its a money laundering process”. he also mentioned that government officials usually ride in cars that are red-plated and so NGOs that are highly supported by government are called red-plated NGOs. “these NGOs are like gangsters, they get the money from the government through an angry and aggressive approach and only use a little bit of the funds for their organizations and pocket the rest for themselves.
i shared with them the singapore context regarding poverty and other matters of illegitimacy and told them that its portrayed as a problem due to government policies so the stigma is barely visible. however it still exist and many muslim women are forced to marry immediately if they are found pregnant. due to that, divorce rates are high among young muslim couples. on top of that, women who bring the children up themselves face a quiet stigma more so from family members and people they know than the society at large.
i told them my project looks at the unseen/seen aspects of illegitimacy and hope to create an awareness based on emotions and not on factual data. “i am seeking to indirectly humanise the problem” i told Pak Bambang and the rest. Pak bambang himself mentioned the risk of exploitation and how i frame the work, especially the images, is highly important. i told him i was aware of this conundrum and that is why i chose such an indirect approach. i thank him and the rest for their time as i had another meeting with Endira from Platform3 at five pm. however i was relieved to have met the gang from KAP and were looking forward to meet the youths this Sunday, knowing it will add that economic dimension to my research and put an additional dimension on how economic position and social class might or might not affect the recurrence of having children out of wedlock and also affect how open or closed up the issue is in specific class systems.
