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There has been a rise in the number of infant kidnappings in Indonesia.
Many of these babies are taken from hospitals and health centres, some of them only hours after birth.
According to experts, these babies are kidnapped mainly to feed a growing demand for illegal adoption, both domestically and overseas.
Just last week, police claimed to have busted a syndicate in Central Java who sold a newborn baby for around 400 US dollars.
Monica Kotwani speaks with one mother who had her baby kidnapped.
Baby Putra Merdeka Kembali is fast asleep, under the watchful gaze of his mother Murtanty.
“I still have bad dreams about my baby being kidnapped. The other day I dreamt my baby was kidnapped by two people. I woke up screaming and woke my husband up and he said what’s wrong? I said our baby was taken again! I keep an eye on him all the time now.”
His name is a unique one- Putra means son, Merdeka, freedom, and Kembali to return.
Fourteen hours after he was born, Putera Merdeka was kidnapped from the health centre by a midwife who worked there part-time.
“She came in and said she needed to immunize my baby. My other sister Lestari had actually already taken him for his immunization and I told her his. But she said this is a different immunization. I was still weak and bleeding from the pregnancy. So I just gave him to her.”
According to her colleagues, the midwife had a miscarriage last August, and was desperate for a baby. Her attempt at adoption had failed.
Such kidnappings are on the rise according to the National Commission for Child Protection.
Secretary General of the commission Arist Merdeka Sirait says their records show that 102 babies were kidnapped last year and more than 20 were from hospitals and health centers.
“This figure is rising mainly in the case of children born in hospitals and birth centers, because there is a need, a demand and a supply. There seems to be a trend that the babies who are going missing from these places are less than five days old. From the very beginning, in 2008 my organization put out a warning that there are people inside these hospitals and health centres involved in the kidnappings.”
Arist says the main reason for baby kidnapping in Indonesia is for illegal adoption.
He says there is a domestic and foreign demand for these babies from people who want to bypass adoption procedures.
“The culture in Indonesia is that people adopt without telling anyone and they don’t want to do it legally. Then there are other people who want a child instantly and without anyone knowing. And also they want children who are fit and healthy - it’s a motivation and culture that is very different from Western culture where people are happy to adopt children with disabilities. So the issue here is culture.”
At Sayap Ibu Foundation children are singing along to Barney and friends on television. They’re all up for adoption.
There are 35 children ranging from two weeks to ten years. Many have some type of disability.
Tjipto Winoto is Sayap Ibu’s chairwoman. She agrees with Arist Merdeka - that cultural attitudes play a big role in the illegal adoption of babies.
“People do not want others to know that they have adopted. They keep it a secret. But according to child protection laws, the best practice is for adopted children to be told that they are adopted when the time is right. But in Indonesian most people don’t like doing that they want the adopted child to be viewed as their own child.”
Sayap Ibu Foundation is one of Indonesia’s main adoption agencies, and the only adoption centre in Indonesia that handles foreign adoption.
Couple wanting to adopt have to be between the ages of 25 and 45, been married for at least five years and for foreign couples - have resided in Indonesia for at least two years.
Tjipto says that some people don’t have the patience to wait and turn to the illegal market instead.
“The want to do this as soon as possible. They don't have the patience to wait for the procedures.”
And it’s not just kidnapped babies on the market.
Tjipto says poverty forces some women to sell their babies to middlemen.
“Trafficking infants overseas comes down to poverty. This happens a lot in poor areas. They do not have things like family planning, or use of contraceptives, so when they have children they can’t look after them, they can afford to educate them. Even feeding them is different. So they are very vulnerable and fall victim to people who want to buy their children.”
Back at Murtanti’s home, Putra Merdeka stirs and makes noises in his sleep.
He will never remember this incident, but his family will and wants to make sure it never happens again.
Her sister Rahmah says security at the health centre was poor and the police did not respond to her cries for help fast enough.
“Have you called the police? Usually if something like this happens the police come straight away. We were waiting and the police hadn’t arrived. My nephew had been kidnapped! So I called the police myself and they told me to come down to the police station. They didn’t come to the place where the kidnapping took place.”
But in the wake of publicity about the case the government has stepped up security at hospitals and health centers including installing security cameras.
When I visited the health centre, where the incident happened, I was stopped at the ground floor, and interrogated as to the reasons for my visit.
But Arist Merdeka from the National Commission for Child Protection says the government needs to do more to stop illegal adoption to neighboring countries like Malaysia and Singapore.
