Camelia Pasandaran & Dessy Sagita, Jakarta – In an ironic twist, the day intended to celebrate children did not even allow them a chance to be heard.

On Friday, National Children's Day, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono called on parents to guide their children properly and not allow them to grow aimless.

"We should give them freedom to choose their goals and the way they will pursue their future, but help them to make sure that they have taken the right choice and way," Yudhoyono said during celebrations held at the Taman Mini Indonesia Indah theme park in East Jakarta.

However, two children representing the 300-strong Indonesian Children's Congress were not given the freedom to read "Voice of Indonesian Children," an eight-point declaration they prepared over the past week.

Just an hour before the celebrations, the organizing committee informed Arif Rochman Hakim, 16, and Maesa Ranggawati, 15, that the Presidential Palace had ordered their presentation scrapped, with no official reason given.

"We just wanted to give a voice to the nation's children," Arif said. "Three hundred of us from Aceh to Papua gathered together to come up with this eight-point list that would take five minutes, tops, to read out. We're very disappointed. When we called up the other kids in the congress and told them, they cried."

The declaration included, among other things, calls for greater religious and ethnic tolerance, a bigger budget allocation for children's issues and protection for homeless children.

But a children's congress official said the cancellation might have been because of the last point in the declaration: that Indonesian children be protected "from the danger of tobacco through the banning of cigarette advertisements, increasing the price of cigarettes, putting more prominent warning signs on cigarette packaging, and restricting children's access to cigarettes."

"We suspect this was what forced the cancelation of the declaration being read out," congress official Puspa Sari said.

She added she had spoken about the snub to National Education Minister Muhammad Nuh, who oversaw Friday's celebration, but Nuh said he was powerless to do anything.

He declined to comment on the issue, saying he needed to "speak to the kids first," while presidential spokesman Julian Aldrin Pasha said he knew nothing about the decision.

"We were told the decision came from the palace, but I hope it wasn't from the president, because we'd like to think he's on the children's side," Puspa said. "This situation must be rectified, because today is the children's day, not that of the authorities."

Arist Merdeka Sirait, chairman of the National Commission for Children's Protection (Komnas Anak), said he made a deal with the event committee a month ago to have the declaration be part of the agenda.

"Basically today's event was the high-ranking officials' day and not the National Children's Day, as if our country didn't have any problem regarding children and violence."

Komnas Anak on Friday released new data showing that the number of cases of violence against children, especially physical and sexual violence, has increased. In the first five months of 2010, 1,826 cases were recorded, as opposed to 1,891 in the whole of 2009 and 1,626 cases in 2008.