Indonesian child jockeys as young as 3 forced to risk lives for $5.40 pay

While horse riding is a luxury for children in Singapore, where parents can accompany their children for classes, it is a livelihood for some Indonesian children, many of whom are trained from the tender age of two and a half years old.

In West Nusa Tenggara, children as young as three are often forced to compete in dangerous horse races as jockeys. The adults who rely on these child jockeys for money say it is part of the area's traditions, but the age at which training begins has gotten lower over the years.

A former jockey featured in Channel NewsAsia's Get Real said that toddlers are sent for training once they have learned to walk.

In an episode titled Forced to Ride, the documentary series reported that children race on horses going as fast as 80 kmh so they can earn money to buy items such as motorcycles, cows, televisions or refrigerators for their families. 

The cash prize for winning a race ranges from US$300 to US$500 (S$403 to S$672), which translates to millions of Indonesian rupiah. But it's not the children who get the prize money.

Instead, horse owners pay the children a meagre US$4 to US$7 per round, regardless of the results.

Photographer Romi Perbawa, who documented child jockeys in the area from 2010 to 2014, says that the children are forced to skip school during the season, which runs for up to 100 days a year.

The children also raced without proper safety gear, medical response teams or health insurance.

Accidents are common, Perbawa said, but this does not deter families from sending their young children, one after another, onto the racing tracks.

According to the documentary, a boy named Awang was killed in April under a stampede of horses after he fell during a race. According to residents interviewed, another boy who fell during training suffered nerve damage.

Why then are children risking their lives? Well, it is one way to escape poverty.

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According to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation, a farmer's annual income in Indonesia is US$1,000, but child jockeys can earn over seven times the amount in a year. The parents of child jockeys depend on their children for a livelihood.

There are child labour laws in Indonesia but for the children in West Nusa Tenggara, survival proves to be more important.

This practice is not unique to Indonesia only. In Mongolia, children are also groomed to become jockeys from the time they turn seven.

More than 11,000 children are registered as jockeys, according to the government's child protection agency, and 150 of them participated in the main official celebrations of Naadam, Mongolia's biggest festival, in Ulan Bator.

China Daily reported that a child jockey in Mongolia earns 500,000 tugrik (about S$340) a month and the money goes to their parents, while coaches pay for food and school materials.

A 2014 Unicef report said that some 326 child jockeys were hospitalised in 2012, mostly with head or bone injuries.

It surveyed 529 child jockeys, with some five per cent saying they had been beaten or kicked by their instructors.

stephluo@sph.com.sg

AFP contributed to this article.