Indonesia home to 5.4 million abandoned children: minister (2)

Only 17,000 heavily disabled ones are supported by a monthly government allowance of 300,000 rupiah (about 32.6 U.S. dollars), Salim said.

There are also 1.7 million abandoned elderly people between the ages of 60 to 80. Only 10,000 of them received the similar monthly allowance from the state.

"We haven't been able to provide support for more people due to limited funding," the minister said.

He also said that 2.3 million families still live in inadequate houses.

The social conditions of isolated tribal communities in a number of regions were another problem, Salim added.

He said this segment consisted of 225,000 families, only 31 percent of who had access to government-run empowerment programs.

"The number of vulnerable group is significant, including millions of women with economic and social problems," Salim said.

Indonesia is the world's largest archipelago country with more than 231 million population living in more than 17,000 islands.

Source: Xinhua
【1】 【2】