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Audio slide show: Jakarta's dark side

The Jakarta Post, by Inga Ting and Moch N. Kurniawan, Tue, 01/26/2010 8:40 PM



Every year, 300,000 newcomers pour into Jakarta in search of new opportunities. Most will end up in one of the cities many slums. Although they are among the nation's poorest, these unwanted residents pay more than the rich for basic necessities like clean water, sanitation and solid waste removal.

This is the hidden reality of Asia's rapid industrialisation, which has condemned more than 28 million Indonesians - including around one third of Jakarta's 13 million residents - to life in the slums.

In East Jakarta, 70,000 makeshift shelters housing more than 200,000 people huddle on the banks of the Ciliwung River. Year after year these residents battle not only poverty, malnutrition and disease, but also the annual floods of one of the city's most polluted rivers.


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