Brief Description

Since the delayed official recognition of the arrival of COVID-19 on March 2, 2020, the pandemic battered Indonesia’s population in successive waves of growing intensity, making it the country in Southeast Asia with the highest number of infections and deaths for most of the subsequent two years. It even came in first in global COVID-19 rankings following a spike in the number of cases due to the Delta variant in July of 2021.

Despite the severity of the epidemiological situation, lockdown directives were taken half-heartedly, and containment measures were applied on-and-off amid the rising human toll. Images and messages were used by the government to instill fear, with harsh punishments handed out to members of disadvantaged groups who had little if any understanding of the conditions precluding their compliance. While the pandemic raged on, Indonesia’s economic status went from that of an upper-middle income to that of a lower-middle income country. 

The Indonesian government’s broad-based National Economic Recovery Program, which consisted of stimulus initiatives as well as the expansion of social protection programs, was challenged by long-standing operational obstacles, problems with provision of in-kind aid, inadequate benefits and diminishing resources in the second year of the pandemic.

Moreover, the welfare system’s biases in favour of more privileged public and private employees, its exclusion of those not registered in the residence-based database (e.g. domestic migrants) as well as individuals belonging to stigmatized groups (such as transgender women), left vulnerable groups without support.

As in other countries, women were overlooked and increases in terms of care burdens and domestic violence were reported. Individual and community initiatives did their best to address low-income and marginalized groups’ needs, but could meet these only partially.

About the photographer

Edy Susanto is a documentary photographer born in Jakarta. He completed a special training on photo journalism at Antara Journalistic Photo Gallery in 2000 and has attended a number of training and workshops in photography, including the one in which he was selected to join a photography workshop mentored by German photographer winning in a World Press Photo Contest, Peter Bialobrezky. See https://www.edy-susanto.com/. 

The photos were first exhibited at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre (BACC) from 17 October to 5 November titled “Who Cares? COVID-19 Divides in Southeast Asia” With the exception of Myanmar, selected photos from the countries’ documentation also served to illustrate the book, “Who Cares? COVID-19 Social Protection Response in Southeast Asia”, edited by Rosalia Sciortino and published by Silkworm Books.