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bylaw on the handling of people with social welfare problems (PMKS) is expected to be approved by the beginning of 2014 by the Semarang City Council in Central Java to deal with homeless people including street kids and beggars.

Once approved, the bylaw will fine people for giving money to beggars or street kids. Beggars who receive money will also be punished under the bylaw.

A similar bylaw has been implemented by the Jakarta administration.

'The fine may vary between Rp 500,000 (US$41.30) and Rp 1 million,' head of PMKS division at Semarang City Social Welfare, Youth and Sports Agency, Hengky Suherdiyono, said recently.

Apart from that, according to Hengky, the city administration would also provide rehabilitation programs for street kids and beggars before sending them back to their respective places of origin.

Beggars and street kids have long been an unfinished problem in Semarang as their number continues to increase. There were only some 275 of them in 2012, while there are currently 350 this year. Most of them came from neighboring towns such as Mranggen, Ungaran and Kendal.

Agency head Tri Supriyano said the bylaw would become a legal umbrella for the Semarang city administration to carry out raids on beggars in the city.

'Having no legal umbrella has restricted us in conducting public order raids because we are accused of violating human rights when conducting such measures,' Tri said.

His agency, according to Tri, had allocated Rp 300 million to tackle the problem next year, a significant increase compared to this year's budget of Rp 80 million.

'We plan to conduct raids more intensively,' Tri said.

One challenge that the agency will face once the bylaw is approved and implemented is that it has limited facilities to accommodate raided beggars and street kids. The existing facility, he said, had always been overcrowded.

'We will ask the Social Affairs Ministry to provide for facilities for rehabilitation purposes,' Tri said.

During rehabilitation, raided kids and beggars would also be given life skills training and provided with working capital to start a business to help them make a living.

'That way they hopefully will no longer be beggars,' said Tri, adding that those hailing from outside Semarang would be sent back to their respective hometowns to start new lives.

Separately, Subkhi, a beggar, said he did not know about the deliberated draft bylaw on homeless people. He said he was not afraid of the implementation of the bylaw once it was approved, arguing that being raided by public order officers had been a part of his life as a beggar.

He also said it was part of the risks of his 'occupation'. 'What else can I do? This has been my occupation. After being raided I will return,' Subkhi said.

He also said that giving life skills training to people like him would be useless, because they can get more income than having a decent job. As a beggar, he said, he could earn a minimum of Rp 50,000 per day.

'At one point I did want to find a job, but it wasn't easy,' said Subkhi, adding that most beggars would probably come back to the streets after taking part in rehabilitation and training programs.