Government institutions should work together to help children who were born out of wedlock and while their parents served as migrant workers because most of those children do not have birth certificates, making it difficult for them to enter school or process other documents, an advocacy group said.

Since 2008, the National Commission for Child Protection (Komnas Anak) has recorded about 215 Indonesian children of migrant workers who do not have birth certificates.

Some of the children were born out of wedlock, while some were victims of rape cases.

Arist Merdeka Sirait, the chairman of Komnas Anak, told the Jakarta Globe on Thursday that institutional corporation was needed between the Ministry of Transmigration and Manpower, the Ministry of Home Affairs and also the Ministry of Social Affairs to insure children’s rights.

“The children of the migrant workers are often sent to their grandparents or orphanages because the parents feel ashamed or want to avoid social stigma from the neighbors for being sexually abused,” he said.

Arist mentioned that the government must be involved to help children have a better future despite of their background.

“No matter who they are, no matter what happened to their mother, the government really needs to provide a facility and services to ease those children lives,” he said.