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Prostitution helps community thrive
Your ID Ma’am: A member of the city’s public order agency checks ID cards of women in the Dolly red-light district in Surabaya, East Java, in this picture taken in January this year
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span class="inline inline-none">Your ID Ma’am: A member of the city’s public order agency checks ID cards of women in the Dolly red-light district in Surabaya, East Java, in this picture taken in January this year. The city administration is attempting to eradicate prostitution with a budget of Rp 6.5 billion (US$669,500) for 2013, among others to provide alternative skills for thousands of sex workers in Dolly and other red-light districts across Surabaya. (Antara/M. Risyal Hidayat)
Prostitution has existed since the beginning of civilization and in some parts of the world, like in Dolly, Surabaya, it has become part of the community and its culture.
Selling sex is illegal in Indonesia. History, however, tells us that it is not unusual for prostitution to become legal, or at the very least tolerated by officials, to support regional economies.
For example, former Jakarta governor Ali Sadikin once legalized the Kramat Tunggak prostitution complex in North Jakarta to finance the development of the capital in the 1970s, and to “rehabilitate” the sex workers. Kramat Tunggak, however, did not last after Ali’s departure as governor, and prostitution in Jakarta returned to the underground economy.
Dolly, on the other hand, has never been officially recognized as legitimate by the regional government but it has managed to survive for decades as one of the main contributors to the economy of East Java’s capital.
The Dolly prostitution complex consists of at least 300 brothels covering at least 30 hectares in the Putat Jaya subdistrict, employing thousands of prostitutes each night.
Due to its illegal nature there has never been any official data about the monetary value of transactions conducted in the area. However, locals and workers say that Dolly could be worth billions of rupiah daily.
A pimp, who wished to be referred to only as Arifin, said that transactions in Dolly could reach at least Rp 2 billion (US$200,000) per day from prostitution alone. This means that Dolly’s annual turnover from sex alone could be at least Rp 730 billion.
The existence of prostitution in Dolly has also triggered numerous supporting businesses — clinics, mini markets, sexual enhancement medicine vendors, parking lots, banks, rented houses, Internet cafes, small restaurants — even Islamic boarding schools operate in the area.
University of Indonesia economist Lana Soelistianingsih said that based on the assumption that income to consumption ratio stood at 60 percent in Dolly, the economic transactions triggered by prostitution could contribute around Rp 1.5 trillion to Surabaya’s gross domestic product (GDP), which stood at Rp 235 trillion in 2011.
“But that is just from prostitution. If there are a lot of businesses in the area that heavily depend on prostitution, then the overall contribution from the complex to the city’s economy might be quite significant,” Lana said.
The history of the Dolly complex and how it has managed to become an integral part of Surabaya is unclear and has many different versions.
According to a paper from the Sunan Ampel Islamic Institute in Surabaya, the complex was initiated by a woman named Dolly Khavit.
In 1967, Dolly married a Dutch sailor and opened her first brothel. From one brothel, her business grew and the area became synonymous with her name.
Decades later, Dolly has become one of the largest prostitution centers in Southeast Asia — though still much smaller than Bangkok’s Patpong, going by unofficial traveler reviews.
The fact that Dolly is located in Surabaya, the second-largest metropolis in Indonesia that hosts an international airport and the busy Tanjung Perak Port, has also helped it grow significantly.
Sex workers here say their customers came from all over the globe and from various institutions, including from the marines stationed at the port, and even the police.
“When policemen and military men visit Dolly for sex, they use disguises because they are not allowed to be here except to join patrols,” Ayu, a local prostitute, said.
“You can tell if a customer is involved with the military or the police. They often have short hair with muscular figures and they always like to finish quickly because they do not want to get caught,” she added.
Another version among the locals, however, suggests that the Dolly complex has been around since the Dutch colonial era and the name derived from a Dutch-Indonesian prostitute named Dolly.
Regardless of the various versions of the origins of Dolly, locals say it would be very hard to disregard its contribution to the community as a whole.
Sugeng, a taxi driver who operates in the Dolly complex, said that every attempt to eradicate prostitution from the area had been futile.
“A couple of years ago, East Java Governor Soekarwo tried to remove prostitution from Dolly. But like others before him, he failed. Prostitution can never be removed from Dolly because thousands of livelihoods depend on its existence,” Sugeng said.
“Dolly’s significance and contribution to the community has been so significant that its name has become better known than that of Surabaya itself,” he added.
