Peer-reviewed article
Take us seriously: the lack of meaningful child participation in the design process of Child Friendly Integrated Public Spaces in Jakarta (RPTRA)
Michael Willy Patawala ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This research examined why children were not meaningfully participating in the design of child-friendly public spaces (RPTRA) in Jakarta. The study involved 19 children and 20 adults across three RPTRA sites using a child-centered participatory approach. The research found that poor understanding of child participation among both children and adults led to discrimination in recruitment, exclusion of children with disabilities, and tokenistic involvement where adults dominated decisions. The study recommends developing comprehensive policies to create an enabling environment for genuine child participation, including awareness-raising, non-discrimination practices, child-friendly methods, and collaborative decision-making.
Key points
- Lack of understanding of child participation among both children and adults was the primary barrier to meaningful participation
- Discrimination occurred in child recruitment and equal participation was not enabled for children from marginalized groups including those with disabilities
- Adult-dominated decision-making resulted in manipulation of the process and tokenistic child participation
- Five holistic policy elements are recommended: awareness-raising about children's rights, non-discrimination values, monitoring and evaluation systems for children, child-friendly task-based methods, and collaborative decision-making between adults and children
- The enabling environment for genuine child participation was lacking in the RPTRA design process
Limitations
This study examined three specific RPTRA sites in Jakarta and may not represent all child-friendly public space initiatives or other contexts. The research provides qualitative findings about barriers and recommendations but does not test the effectiveness of the proposed policy solutions.
Abstract
The primary objective of this research is to investigate the lack of an enabling environment for meaningful child participation in the design process of the Jakarta Child Friendly Inte-grated Public Space Initiatives (RPTRA). I employed a Child-Centered Participatory Ap-proach (CCPA) involving 19 children (from RPTRA Jaka Teratai, RPTRA Cipinang Besar Utara, and RPTRA Anggerek) as well as 20 adults who worked with these children in the RPTRA design process. The research findings confirm that the lack of an enabling environ-ment for meaningful child participation in the RPTRA design process was triggered by a lack of understanding of child participation among both the children and adults involved. This manifested in various issues including: discrimination in child recruitment; failure to enable equal participation for children from marginalised groups such as children with disabilities; and adult-dominated decision-making causing manipulation of the process and tokenistic child participation. To address the failure to realize meaningful child participation in this kind of RPTRA activities, I argue for the child rights duty bearers involved in RPTRA to develop a compre-hensive policy aimed at creating an enabling environment for meaningful child participation. This policy should revolve around five holistic elements: raising the awareness of children and adults about children’s rights using creative campaigns as well as capacity building; uti-lising non-discrimination values; providing a monitoring and evaluation system for children; employing a task-based method that is friendly and fun for children; and developing a col-laborative decision-making approach between adults and children.