The Dolly prostitution complex in Surabaya, East Java, challenges anyone’s assumption of Indonesia being a conservative religious state. Despite prostitution being illegal in Indonesia, the government has failed to shut down Dolly — one of the main economic drivers of the country’s second largest city. The Jakarta Post’s Hans David Tampubolon recently checked out the site to learn about the history and the economic impact of Dolly on its neighboring communities.

As the sun sets in Surabaya and urban workers prepare to go home, the pulse of Dolly begins to vibrate.

Widely known as gang Dolly or Dolly Alley, this area is anything but an alley. It covers nearly 30 hectares of the Putat Jaya sub-district. According to locals, there are at least 300 brothels operating daily in the area located in the Sawahan district.

Even its parking lots have amorous names, such as “Bara Asmara” (Fire of Love). The brothels mostly have western-style names, such as Barbara and Dollywood. Opening hours are from 7 p.m. to 4 a.m.

Some brothels are larger than others but they all have similarities — wide transparent windows as their main facade with women, both young and middle aged, sitting inside clad in miniskirts and tank tops with dyed hair, along with excessively white powdered faces.

In front of each brothel, several men, some in their 20s while others look a lot older than 40, stand around. These are not pimps but brokers. Their job is to tap every visitor on the shoulder and let them know that sex is available for sale in the area. They are very persistent like salesmen and are not shy about the services the woman offer.

“Do you want quick sex? You can get it here with a very beautiful girl for only Rp 100,000 (US$10.31) per hour,” one man told The Jakarta Post.

“If you only want to have a beer with the girl, the cost will be the same. So, I recommend you also book her for an hour. Nothing to lose,” he added.

“She is also very friendly and a good drinker as well,” he said.

During a chat with the Post in a 12-square-meter room, “Ayu” said that she had been working for the same brothel in Dolly for more than 10 years. She had been divorced twice and the first had led her to the world of prostitution.

“I married a construction worker, back in 2000. He then cheated on me and just left me. I only had a junior high school education and I lived in a small village in Malang. It was hard for me to find work, so I needed to find a man willing to marry a divorcee,” Ayu said.

Ayu was introduced to prostitution when she decided to look for work in Surabaya. She knew nobody in the city when she arrived and suddenly a man spotted her at a bus terminal.

“He offered me a place to stay. I thought he was going to offer me a job as a maid,” Ayu said.

The man turned out to be a pimp. He then brought Ayu to his brothel and for the first time Ayu was introduced to prostitution.

“My first customer was my pimp’s colleague. He always offered his newest girls to his friends and colleagues,” Ayu said. During this time, she began taking drugs as she believed life was no longer worth living as a prostitute. Under the influence of drugs, Ayu said she became reckless and was willing to do just about anything, including unprotected sex.

Ayu confirmed that even now, a lot of sex workers in Dolly were willing to have unprotected sex with their customers. Some of them are her friends and have been continuing to prostitute themselves despite having been infected by sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).

She used to be one of them but now she refuses to take the risk.

“If a customer does not want to wear condoms, then I will not serve him. I have a daughter to think about and I do not want to risk catching STDs for my daughter’s sake,” she said.

Ayu’s daughter was the reason she briefly retired in 2002.

“One of my customers did not want to use a condom. He then decided to marry me,” she said.

The marriage did not last long, however, as Ayu’s second husband also left after she gave birth to a baby girl. With no husband and now with a child, Ayu decided to return to prostitution in 2003 to support her family.

“My monthly salary now is Rp 9 million. I always send half of that to my daughter, who stays with my mother in Malang and the other half I’m saving to buy a house and a motorcycle,” she said.

Ayu said that her brothel was one of the lower class ones as customers were only charged Rp 100,000. Nearby, she said, was a more sophisticated brothel that could charge customers between Rp 300,000 and Rp 500,000.

It was not hard to find the exclusive brothel Ayu talked about, the one with a large neon sign in front of its gates.

Unlike other brothels, it displays prostitutes in a hall, almost like a cinema theater, with the women sitting in a big glass case. They are seated in three different levels. The higher they are seated, the more expensive they are.

Apparently, the sex workers here spend most of their time inside the glass case, as there is also a traditional snack vendor inside. If a woman gets hungry, she only needs to buy snacks directly from the vendor.

Despite the glamorous look of this brothel, the women are only paid on a commission-based system.

“Niken”, one of the sex workers, said that they did not mind being paid based on commission because it meant that they could earn as much as possible by serving as many customers as they could.

“Our boss also has brothels in Jakarta. So, we also have the chance to go to the capital city for work. That is where the big money is,” she said.

Niken refused to reveal her monthly income but she said it was enough for her to get by and to allow her 15-year old daughter to go to school in Purwakarta, West Java.

Both Niken and Ayu said although the pay was good in sex work, life was never glamorous and all they were obsessed with was saving enough to retire.

“A lot of people are amazed with the amount of money I earn in a month. But the money is nothing compared to the fact that every day I must have sex with dozens of strangers who at times can be rude and even refuse to wear condoms,” Ayu said.

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