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span class="inline inline-left">The Jakarta administration has tried several times to offer sex workers ways to escape the sex industry, with varying results. One such example was when city authorities gave speeches at a ceremony at a facility of the social welfare agency where sex workers were attending a dressmaking course. The next day, some papers reported that the women did not return to their villages in Indramayu, West Java, after the course finished, but rather returned to their old lives in Jakarta.

Women working in the prostitution center of Kramat Tunggak, North Jakarta, said that the income from sewing was just too far below sex work.

Former governor Sutiyoso finally managed to close the prostitution site in 2009 and an Islamic center was built in the area.

A high ranking health official had confided to reporters that it would be better to legalize prostitution; closing Kramat Tunggak would result in the dispersion of prostitution sites to several unidentified locations — making health checkups impossible on the inhabitants of the red-light district.

Surabaya, the country’s second largest city, is still trying to phase out Dolly, East Java’s famed prostitution site.

“Closing Dolly is not easy,” said Surabaya’s Mayor Tri Rismaharini, who like former Surakarta mayor Joko Widodo (now Jakarta Governor) gained recognition for managing to clear pavements of vendors.

Unlike other red light districts in the city, she said, the society around Dolly “has been attached to the area since the 1960s”.

However, the administration continues to provide training to sex workers to help more women change their source of livelihood, with the aim to finally close Dolly by 2014.

The mayor was responding to the statement of Social Affairs Minister Salim Segaf Al-Jufri, who praised Surabaya for closing the smaller Dupak Bangunsari red-light area in January.

“I am confident that the success of closing Dupak Bangunsari can become a pilot project for other red-light districts across Indonesia,” Salim said, as quoted by Republika daily.

Pimps, residents and observers cite Dolly’s huge economic contribution to Surabaya as the main constraint to ending its existence, from sex transactions and the surrounding businesses. (anr)