The World of Children

This boy is 18 years old originated from a city in Sumatera, Indonesia called Palembang. His name is Mustar, a primary school graduate. When I asked him why he did not continue with his studies, he claims that his parents were Bandits.Palembang is a place where many husbands work as Bandits for a living, while their wives work as whores. They have children like many other people, and still live as a family.

Indonesia, especially in rural areas such as where I live is inhabited by people with traditionally conservative moral. Husbands work to bring the bacon home, while their wives stay at home as housewives, bear children and raise them at home. Sex before marriage is very much a taboo, while early marriage (aged 16 - 18) is still quite common.

I met this boy on Wednesday, 7th April 2010 at 10:30pm Local Time.

Earlier on the day, at 3pm, I received a report from the Security Department that said 'A girl found naked in a Room of a Male Employees housing, mouth foamed and unconscious. The girl is not our employee, but our employee's relative. It is suspected that the girl was locked up. Currently sent for medical attention, we have the local Police handling the case.' The first thing that came to my mind when I heard the news was 'Raped'. As the Police was already handling the case, I proceed with my work at the time.

By 7:00pm, I was only done with daily errands and I called Security Department to check on what I thought was a 'victim of rape'. Later at night, it was reported totally differently - The girl was not found naked, was not locked up, but ran away from home stayed at her boyfriend's house (the house where she was found) and her mother was furious about where she found her, beat her up so badly and she fainted for one and a half hours and released from the clinic.

The fact that the neighborhood where the girl was found (inside my 'house')  was frightened by the rumor that there is a rapist going loose in the area makes me responsible for the security of the employees. Later at around 7:45pm, I called the victim named Mira and her family (her mother and older sister) to come to my place. I thought, this issue must be investigated to the bottom of the matter.

At 7:45pm, Mira a Bugis tribe descendant stumbled into the Guest Room and as she found the sofa, she lied down holding her neck with her hands. Soon, my colleague and I approached her to ask her where she find it painful and she said "on my back neck". We asked "Do you know what happened to your back neck?" and she answered "someone kicked me". We asked "who kicked you?". For a moment she went silent, and seemed as if she was thinking and she said "my cousin". "Is your cousin a man or a woman?" we asked her again, she said "a woman, now working at night shift. Her name is Evy". As soon as I found out, I asked to call this cousin of her for interrogation.

Soon after asking Mira about her condition, her mother and sister walked in. As soon as they sat down, we began the interrogation:
We first asked: "what happened to her?"
Older Sister: "she went missing last night at about 6pm, and we found her this afternoon at about 1pm at this boy's house. The door was pad locked from outside, we had to batter down the door and we saw her there unconscious. Soon after we sent her to the clinic."
We asked: "Did someone beat her? Why is she saying that someone is beating her?"
Older sister: "Not sure"
We asked: "What happened to her neck? Are you sure you don't know if someone beat her or why? Could there be some relationship issues here?"
Older sister: "Not that we know"
Suddenly, Mira cut it and said subtly "My mother, my sister and my cousin beat me"
So we asked the older sister: "Did you beat her? Why?"
Older sister: "She went missing for 2 days, I had been worried sick about her. When I found out, she had ran away to a boy's housing and slept in his room. I became very angry, my mother was very upset."
We asked: "Was she naked?"
Older sister said firmly: "No! she was perfectly clothed"

The cousin walked in, and suddenly they suddenly spoke in their dialect discussion about what is going on. We then started to interrogate 'the cousin':
We asked: "Do you know what's going on with her?"
The Cousin: "She ran away from home to her boyfriend's house, today at 1pm we found her in his room"
We asked: "Did you find her naked?"
The Cousin: "I didn't find her, her sister did. She had came to me and said angrily 'go check on Mira, she's shamelessly naked' while pointing to the boy's house. So I walked in and she was on the floor"
We asked: "Did you beat her?"
The Cousin: "Yes, we all did. We were all worried sick about her, and we just got very angry when we found her in a boy's room. Her mother was so angry, she even asked us to just vanish her. We tried to find the boy but he already ran away".

We had found dissimilarity of  their stories, where Mira's sister persisted that she was not found naked and was merely got beaten because she ran away from home while Mira's cousin implied that she somewhat had some sexual relationship with a boy. Later, I found out that for Bugis people it is a great disgrace for a girl to even visit a boy's house. Mira's sister attempted as much as she could to protect her family's so called dignity. I also found that Bugis tribe protect each other immensely, and that they are very primitively violent towards resolving issues.

I knew, this problem cannot be solved until we can find the boy. I had asked the Security Department to go on search, that night, around the housing area. Eventually, at about 10.30pm after we waited for a while we found him. Immediately, we called him for isolated interrogation:
We asked: "Why did you run away?"
He said: "I didn't"
We asked: "You know the girl who was in trouble today? Did she stay in your room last night?"
He said: "Yes"
We asked: "Did you sleep with her? Where did you sleep while she was there?"
He said: "I slept inside and outside from time to time"
We asked: "Did you sleep with her? Have sex with her?"
He went quiet.
We asked more firmly: "Did you have sex with her? It's okay to answer us the truth, we will protect you. If you do not tell us the truth, we cannot protect you from her family. Her family are now hunting you down to take away your life."
He said: "yes"
We asked: "How many times?"
He answered quietly: "three"
We asked: "How long have you known her?"
He said: "Two Days"
We asked: "Two days, and your relationship with her have gone this far? Okay now, are you going to be responsible as a man? Will you marry her?"
He said: "Of course I want to be responsible, I have no intention to run away at all. I see no point of it. I will marry her, but please... let me still work here do not fire me."
We said: "Don't worry about working here, if you say you are willing to be responsible now you have to go to meet her and her family and tell them about it."
And so we walked back to the living room where Mira and her family were.

The living room by then was intensely heated, only because both 'the victim' and 'the culprit' were in the same room, sat to each other. We were the few people of moderators who tried to save this boy's life and bring the two families together at peace.

We said: "For Mira's mother, sister and cousin, are you all willing to accept your daughter Mira to marry this boy?"
They said: "We have no choice but to approve. If do not approve to this, we're sure our relatives who are so heated with the incident, will hunt this boy and take his life."
We said: "Okay, that is quite big hearts you have."
The boy suddenly said: "But I've only worked for one month and I have no money"
The girl's family started talking angrily saying that he had been an idiot to do such thing to an innocent girl knowing that he cannot even bear himself for a living. At the end, we managed to calm them down and offered to help with financial needs for marriage (which was not very significant) and also managed to ask the girl's family to convince their relatives that they will be married the next day and he should not be harmed.

This incident has taught me a few lessons about the lowest level of people in Indonesia. These two youngsters, only met each other for two days and they were forced into marriage. Could it be love that brought them together? Or was it merely lust, or even desperation because of their problems at home with their parents or siblings? What will become their family in the future, or their children? Will this event repeat itself somewhat or somehow with their children? 

Their problems were created by themselves, not even knowing that they are the ones who created it because they are simply incapable of thinking. They were not taught or brought up with proper morals or ethics. They are simply uncivilized. Can we blame their stupidity or gullibility to them? Or.. should we blame it on their parents for not teaching them right? Or perhaps even their grandparents for not teaching their parents with morals and ethics to exist harmonically in the society?

Living in this part of the world, I get to hear a lot of sad stories from burglaries to murders for small matters that cost lives. Just two weeks ago, we had a murder case: A woman stabbed 26 times to death in her own house. After investigation, we discovered that she was murdered by her nephew whose girlfriend worked for her and recently got fired. The nephew became very angry and arranged to assassinate her. The value of life is very cheap here, but the world does not know nor it cares.

I had felt awful after having to handle Mustar's case in such a way, but I know, I have saved one life. Perhaps, I might also have saved a child to be born fatherless. Though, they are only children who will make more children and they have the whole stretch of life ahead of them. What will become of them, I wonder, or their children? 

Some of us may expect this boy to be a man, who can be responsible for his own and his family. The question is, does he know how to be? The question is, how many Mustar's and Mira's exist and live and meet each other, live their lives not knowing they are who they become and not knowing why the become the way they are. They just live, simply exist in our society and contributing to each aspects of our society. Yet, everyday they hope for the world to be a fairer place. 

This is the world of children who will bear their children and their grand children and great grand children. They will simply re-create themselves. This is a sad story and a true story. Indonesia is full of these kind of people, people who do not understand the value of life. Could they be educated for civilization? What can we do to help them?