Robert Go – Tattooed and multiple-pierced 19-year-old Ismail, aka Pluto, cannot remember how long he has been homeless.

All he knows is that he started out in Medan on Sumatra Island and roamed the tough streets of Jakarta before ending up in Yogyakarta in Central Java. "I'm well travelled, compared to other Indonesians," he said wryly.

His friend Midek, 18, calls it a good day when he gets to eat. Usually, his diet consists of cheap and tasty – but perhaps nutritionally suspect – deep-fried tofu or scraps thrown out by street vendors. He summed it up: "This is normal life. I've never known anything else."

They, and thousands younger than them, are anak jalanan – street children – and their numbers have grown alarmingly since the onset of the economic crisis in 1997. In Yogyakarta alone, according to estimates given by local non-government organisations (NGOs), as many as 1,300 children, ranging from babies to those in their late teens, now live on the streets. The situation is worse in bigger urban centres such as Jakarta or Surabaya.

The children spend their days begging at major street intersections or scavenging, living at the mercy of the weather, the police and the rest of society. When they do get money, many spend it on drugs and alcohol. They sniff glue or mix flu medicine with homemade spirits to get high.

Sexually transmitted diseases – syphilis, chlamydia or gonorrhoea – and the lack of proper treatment add to their list of problems. There is little help from the cash-strapped government.

Mr Kristanto Budi Nugroho, a counsellor at the girls' shelter Indriya-nati, said: "The sad thing is that as far as the government is concerned, the kids don't exist. They don't have official ID cards. Without IDs, they can't register for the few aid programmes that exist."

Corruption of available aid money and bureaucratic inefficiency are other reasons cited by the NGOs as to why the number of street children is ever increasing. "Some money get budgeted for anti-poverty, but little of it actually trickle down to the kids," the counsellor said.

Humana/Girli, another NGO working with homeless children here, reckons that more children, and even entire families, will be thrown onto the streets if the country's economic slump lingers.

Mr Kirik Ertanto, Humana's director, said: "The recent trend is that whole families have started appearing on the streets. Begging with a baby in your arms, or with a young child, is a proven method of making money."

Babies are often rented out for as little as S$2 a day, so that older kids carrying them can squeeze more money at major intersections. "The government is preoccupied with its other problems, so the homeless population gets neglected," the Humana director added.

For Ismail and Midek, however, there is little choice but to take things one day at a time. They say they often poke fun at one another. Ismail explained: "Laughing feels good, and it's free. So we find ways to keep laughing."