ByTheWay: The cat-and-mouse game of netting girls of the night

Sun, 01/11/2009 10:03 AM  |  Headlines

I see them almost every night, girls with heavy makeup in tight blouses or tank tops and tight trousers or shorts.

Working at a newspaper, I always go home in the dark of the night. I take the same route, taking the toll road that leads me to the Bintaro residential area at the border of Jakarta's outskirts and Tangerang. Less than two minutes after the toll exit, I can see them clearly in the street's illumination.

The girls are in the same spot, at the mouth of an alley where a cigarette stall stands. They stand or squat by the stall or on the sidewalk, as if waiting for someone to pick them up.

I don't remember exactly when sex workers started to operate there, maybe a year and a half ago.

The Criminal Code does not explicitly ban prostitution. But sex workers can be arrested for obscenity or for disturbing the public order. In some regions, including Tangerang, women who walk alone at night can even be arrested if they are suspected of being a prostitute.

Now and then police and public order officers raid red-light districts, chase prostitutes and arrest them. The women are sent to a rehabilitation center where they are supposed to receive life skills training before being sent back to their hometown.

I don't know how many of them are lucky enough to receive such training, but I have heard about women being sexually abused at the center, who then must pay up before they can leave. After all, frequent raids against prostitutes do not work.

That also happens with the girls I see almost every night.

In August, on my way home, I saw local public order officers and their pick up truck at the roadside where the girls usually operate. The officers came once every few days. Sometimes they sat quietly at the back of the truck or on the grass near the roadside. Once, I saw them playing cards. The girls were nowhere to be seen.

In September, which happened to be the holy month of Ramadhan, the officers intensified the raids. I didn't see the girls anymore. They must have returned to their hometown for Idul Fitri in October.

In November, they started to come back to the street. Early in December, for the first time I saw one of them smoking. A few days later, the public order officers showed up.

I began to feel tired even though I am not physically involved in this cat-and-mouse play.

Such raids, like similar operations against prostitution and sidewalk vendors across many parts of the country, are nothing but a waste of time and energy.

The authorities must have spent a lot of money for the raids. The Jakarta administration, for example, allocated Rp 235.71 billion (more than US$21 million) in its 2008's budget for the public order agency.

The raids are useless because they fail to deal with the root of the problem: poverty.

The recent Jakarta International Film Festival featured the documentary film Pertaruhan (At Stake), which tells of women who work as stone crushers during the day and prostitutes at night in a cemetery that turned into a flesh market. One of them said she hoped to serve five customers a night for Rp 10,000 (less than US$1) each so that she could feed her children.

Well, if the government cannot help them find a better job, at least they should facilitate them with their current job.

"What? Are you crazy? Do you mean that the government should build brothels for them?" you might ask.

Jakarta's notorious flesh market in Kramat Tunggak, North Jakarta, was closed down in 1999 and an Islamic Center was later built on the land. This has failed to curb prostitution, with many sex workers operating on the streets.

If they worked in formal red-light districts, like Dolly in Surabaya, it would be easier for AIDS activists, social workers and city officers to reach them. They could educate and empower the prostitutes so that they know their rights and were not exploited by pimps.

Legalizing prostitution is a controversial issue, especially because we live in a country considered to be among the most religious in the world. But on the other side of a coin, hypocritical people are also out there.

The hypocrites are the kind of men who, upon failure to control their desires, will stone women in sexy outfits for making them horny.

They say prostitution is a dirty business and condemn sex workers as sinful, immoral women who should go to hell. (They usually condemn the prostitutes rather than the pimps or customers.)

Unfortunately, many people are worse than sex workers. Street prostitutes sell their body to survive. But greedy, corrupt government officials and politicians, with no integrity and honor, do not hesitate when selling the nation's interest and the country's wealth.

I also believe the police and public order officers who often raid prostitutes are no better than the prostitutes.

Ah, maybe I am wrong.

Last month I saw an unexpected view. Several public order officers in their dark blue uniforms sat at the back of their truck parked just in front of the alley, while some girls sat or squatted near the cigarette stall.

I wonder what the officers were doing. Maybe they were there to thank the prostitutes because their presence allowed them to launch operations, which meant extra money to celebrate New Year's Eve.

Last night I spotted something new. A pushcart full of rambutan, the local hairy fruit, was parked in front of the cigarette stall. A few meters away, a vendor was busy preparing some fried rice.

Well, while the vendors' presence might be pose another headache for public order officers, I wondered when meatball soup and chicken porridge -- my favorites -- would be on offer.

-- T. Sima Gunawan

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