Poverty is ever-present in Indonesia and at its root – according to the International Labor Organization - are two and a half million child workers.
Freelance photographer Toto Santiko Budi was so disturbed by the lack of coverage in the nation’s media of the poor that he decided to record the life of one family who try and make a living selling newspapers and drinks on the streets on the country’s capital Jakarta.
Toto, a participant in a World Press Photo course at the Pañña Institute of Photography in Jakarta in 2006, works with the JiwaFoto Agency after some years on newspapers and magazines.
He made contact with Zaenal, his wife and three of their daughters under the age of 12 by buying one of their newspapers and then persuading them to allow him to take photographs.
For 35-year-old Zaenal and his 36-year-old wife Nung – who also have four grown-up children – it was a particularly difficult time.
They had been told to leave their house in a slum district of Jakarta, which was near a railway station, because the homes were said to be dangerous so near to the line. So the five of them moved an hour away from the city only to have to return every day to sell their newspapers and drinks.
Toto recorded the family’s last days in their old home and the problems they faced relocating.
Most importantly, moving meant that the three girls could not continue the free schooling they had enjoyed in Jakarta. Making enough money for the family was more important.
“I am concentrating on human interest stories in my career,” says Toto. “I try and make every story simple. I prefer to balance my compositions and use color”.
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