ONE evening at a fish auction station in Lempasing, Bandar Lampung in southern Sumatra. A motorboat heads toward shore. Two men jump off and begin pulling the fishing nets to land. Four children in their early teens adroitly join in. Equally adroitly they help remove the weeks catch to weigh while, in far off places, other children of almost the same age are watching television or doing their homework.

One of the fishing hands is a boy called Poni